


Heart, Are You Great Enough

by prairiecrow



Series: What Are Friends For? [3]
Category: Knight Rider (1982)
Genre: A.I. to Human, Abduction, Angst, Bodyswap, Dreams, Established Relationship, Ethical Dilemma, Friendship, Grief, Guilt, Guns, Human to A.I., Lost Love, Love, M/M, Memories, Nightmares, Primitive Instincts, Transhumanism
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2012-12-14
Updated: 2012-12-26
Packaged: 2017-11-21 03:19:03
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 11
Words: 27,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/592850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/prairiecrow/pseuds/prairiecrow
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A millionaire genius who despises his human body seeks to achieve immortality — and it's Michael and KITT who may wind up paying the price.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by ["What Are Friends For?"](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/14304) by Anax. 



> "Heart, are you great enough  
> For a love that never tires?  
> O heart, are you great enough for love?"
> 
> Alfred, Lord Tennyson, "Marriage Morning"

Michael Knight was cold, and weary after long nights of broken sleep, and electric tension was knotted in the muscles of his shoulders and his spine, coiled tight in the pit of his stomach. The tunnel he was currently walking through carved a low arch of concrete into the side of a mountain peak in the Absaroka Range, descending in a shallow horizontal curve for about a quarter of a dimly lit mile (so far) toward an unknown destination. The chill of the December day outside penetrated even to this depth and his breath was condensing as it left his nose and lips, just enough to be seen in the faint sickly glow of the widely spaced overhead bulbs. His habitual jeans and leather jacket combination weren't quite up to the task of keeping him warm, but he had other things to worry about at this moment than his own comfort. 

Under normal circumstances he would have been travelling in temperature-controlled ease, the depth and configuration of the tunnel scanned and explained by his partner. But these were far from normal circumstances. KITT had been missing for almost a week, vanished without a trace save for the occasional faint signal from his onboard transceiver that seemed to leak through the shielding that Bonnie hypothesized had been erected around him, and it had taken this long to triangulate them to the state of Montana, to Park County, and finally to this wild and remote location.  

For six days Michael had been spinning his own metaphorical wheels, going steadily more crazy with frustration, fury and dread. Bonnie and Devon, to their credit, had given him as much room as he needed to pace and rage: his behaviour, which would surely have struck them as over the top if they hadn't discovered a little over a two months ago that Michael's relationship with his robotic partner was considerably more complex than even the deep friendship they'd previously shared, was now accepted as an understandable reaction to having his lover abducted.  

 _Lover._ It was a strange term to use for a relationship in which actual sexual intercourse never took place (for obvious reasons), but Michael could find none more accurate in a strictly emotional sense. And they certainly did share pleasure: he'd learned the specific places on KITT's molecular bonded shell where the capacitive structural feedback field was most sensitive to the flux response induced by the touch of his hands, and the sensual images KITT"s voice was capable of implanting in his mind were hotter than the real world caress of any woman he'd ever known. They'd come to an understanding and an arrangement as unique as their partnership, and for the past half year Michael had found himself happy and at peace in a way that was new and exciting — and frankly a little bit frightening at times, even though he knew that KITT didn't mind when he took the occasional woman to bed. It was, after all, his job to put them both in harm's way on a regular basis, and KITT's job to make sure that his driver remained intact even if that meant coming back to FLAG in pieces himself. 

Thus far they'd been lucky. They'd survived. But now someone had targeted KITT specifically and taken the AI for reasons unknown — and that, really, was what was driving Michael half mad. He could handle damage to KITT when he knew what that damage was: he'd had to come to terms with the concept that his lover could be injured in the line of duty just as he'd learned to accept wounds inflicted on his friend, otherwise he wouldn't have been able to pilot KITT on missions at all. But this… this had been completely unexpected. KITT had been stolen out from under him: the robot could be deactivated, or disassembled, or even destroyed, and there wasn't a damn thing Michael could do about it. He couldn't judge whether to plan a rescue or to mourn. He couldn't even suffer in sympathy. 

He simply didn't _know_. And that was pain almost beyond endurance. 

But now, at last, he might finally be close to finding out just what the hell was going on. 

He was walking stealthily but the soles of his boots still struck sharp _clicks_ from the chilly floor. When he saw the edge of a door frame around the curve ahead he came to a halt, crouching low and darting a quick peek round the bend: the tunnel had reached its end in a large opening as tall and as wide as the passageway, opening up into a shadowy space beyond. Silently Michael drew the gun holstered under his jacket, a Glock 9mm, and advanced round the curve with his firearm at the ready. He hadn't carried a gun in years, was opposed to them on principle in fact — when he was working with KITT. In a situation where KITT might be in lethal danger he had quite the opposite opinion, and he found himself more than prepared to put a bullet into whoever might decide that threatening his partner was a good idea.  

But nobody challenged him as he approached the huge doorway and passed through it into the darkened room. Pausing ten feet into the space, scanning on all sides to where impenetrable shadows dwelt, he saw computer work stations, ergonomic chairs, and some banks of large stationary equipment — 

— and, about fifty feet straight ahead, a flicker of familiar red light. His heart leaped into his throat as the scanner flashed to full activation and began tracking from right to left, its scrutiny almost palpable on his sensitized skin. In the shadows, the robotic car's engine turned over and idled. 

Relief surged through him, lighting up his face in a wide grin. "KITT!" he exclaimed, and holstered the gun, taking an eager step forward. "Are you okay? What —?" 

The car began to advance over the tiled floor, the purr of its engine rising to a roar as it picked up speed in one smooth spurt.  

 _"Michael,_ ** _no!_** _"_  

The frantic cry from his left — almost a shriek — startled him deeply, but before he could turn toward it his attention was distracted anew by KITT, who was still coming toward him at a horrific rate of acceleration. Too fast for a friendly approach. Too fast to intend to do anything but run him down, but his brain stalled at that conclusion because it was too insane to — 

He was still staring at the onrushing car when something slammed into him on his left side, slim arms thrown around his waist and a soft grunt of effort against his shoulder, forcing him out of the path of the Knight Industries Two Thousand. No, not something: some _one_. A confused impression — male, shorter than himself by a good five inches, a shock of blond hair — was mingled with the awareness that his assailant had been just in time: they'd cleared the car's path with less than five feet to spare, and a quarter of a second later KITT had blown through the spot where they'd been and roared into the tunnel with a screech of tires, the vibration of his engine vanishing rapidly up the incline.  

As for Michael, he slammed into a bank of heavy equipment and tumbled to the floor, still entangled with the man who'd just saved his life. They rolled to a halt side by side against a small rolling cart, the impact bringing a rain of disassembled circuit boards down on their upper bodies; the stranger yelled again, this time inarticulately, and flinched as if the sensation of being struck frightened him. But his eyes remained wide open, fixed on Michael with unblinking intensity and an undefinable quality of need that penetrated even the blaze of adrenaline currently singing through Michael's system. 

Instinctively he rolled on top and grabbed the shoulder of the man's pale green gown — he was clad as if for a medical procedure, arms and lower legs bare — and cocked his right fist back, ready to subdue him in case he proved to be foe rather than friend. The look in those wide eyes stopped him cold. And not just the expression, so amazed and so pleading: the eyes themselves, their precise shade of green, and the sharp contours of the face that framed them sent a shock of warm impossible recognition flowing through every nerve in his body, because he'd seen this face in his dreams, and in extremely detailed sexual fantasies, nearly every day for the last six months. The equivalency was so uncanny that for a couple of seconds he could only gape at it, disbelieving yet equally unable to deny the evidence of his own eyes. 

But what struck him even more than the recognition of a surface was the sense of vital presence behind it, identical to a presence he'd sensed once before, a magnetic pull that had drawn him to find KITT's discarded black box after the CPU had been unhusked from the robotic car that usually contained it. A spirit he'd lived with intimately, at his side and enclosing him and watching over him from afar, for the past four and a half years. 

The soul of his missing lover.  

"Mi-chael," the man whispered brokenly, as if trying out his lips and tongue for the first time.  

"Who are you?" The question was wild, a desperate attempt to deny what he was seeing. "How do you know my name?" 

If the quality of his gaze had been fascinated before, the despair that flooded it now was even more puzzling — and upsetting, as far as Michael was concerned. "Michael, don't you — know me?" He reached out toward Michael's face, aborted the action, then stared at his own hand with a surge of visible horror before bringing it, trembling, to his own cheek: barely touching the pale skin, flinching away from contact as his gaze unfocussed. "I — no, no no _no_ …" 

The inflections of his voice were perfectly right, and the accent too, even if the pitch was a little deeper, but still Michael shook his head, denying everything he was seeing. Consciously, anyway. Something more fundamental had already put the pieces together and recognized their pattern, and it was that part of Michael that actually spoke: "KITT —" 

Those green eyes snapped back to his, intolerably haunted and full of oceanic pain, as their possessor began to shake, a physical reaction that Michael had seen too often from traumatized soldiers in Nam: shudders of deep physical and psychological shock. Hands smaller than his own clutched reflexively at his shirt and then immediately released it, reaching out for deeper connection, and Michael drew the stranger into his arms without hesitation, wrapping him in a secure embrace as the shorter man clung to him around his waist and that sharp featured face burrowed inside the shelter of his leather jacket — trying to hide from the world, he realized with an aching pang in the vicinity of his heart.  

"Shhhh…" He rolled them both onto their sides again and slid his right arm up to curve that hand around the back of the blond head, trying to still the trembling of that slender neck as useless words of comfort flowed. "KITT, it's okay — I'm here, buddy. I found you. It's gonna be all right now — I promise. I promise…" 

"I thought —" A muffled moan against Michael's chest, followed by a sob that shook his whole frame even through his quaking. His voice was a ragged mixture of joy and fear, fierce love and agonized desperation. "I thought you'd — never — come —" 

All Michael could do was hold KITT closer while he wept helplessly, closing his eyes to listen in wondering dread to the racing pulse of two hearts beating together in the darkness. 


	2. Chapter 2

Twenty hours later they were in a Foundation-controlled compound just outside of Billings, as safe as they could be under the present circumstances — which were far too weird and precarious for Michael's peace of mind. 

Getting KITT out of the underground lab had been relatively easy: he'd lost consciousness in Michael's embrace within thirty seconds of being recognized, while Michael was trying to figure out just how to convince the profoundly distressed and traumatized AI to walk back to the surface through the cold tunnel on bare feet. Picked up the smaller male body and carrying it all the way to the non-sentient car parked above was arduous, but he'd been highly motivated, and once he'd gotten KITT's unresponsive body safely stowed in the front seat with the heat going full blast he'd placed a hotline wireless call to Devon back in Billings. It had taken Devon a couple of tries to understand exactly what was going on — Michael had been, admittedly, on the barely controlled verge of hysteria himself by then — but as soon as he'd realized the shape of the situation he'd moved with efficient rapidity, arranging for an ambulance from Bozeman to meet Michael on I-90 as he tore down the mountain roads rapidly darkening toward sunset, terrified that KITT would stop breathing at any moment, unable to help himself from glancing frequently at the lolling head and the terribly vulnerable line of his partner's new neck, the skin so deathly pale, the eye sockets deeply shadowed.  

But KITT hadn't stopped breathing. In fact his vital signs had been good when the paramedics loaded him onto the stretcher, and Michael had followed their flashing lights and wailing sirens all the way to Bozeman, his heart pounding with the agony of the thought that KITT might wake up again and he wouldn't be there. At the hospital he'd bulled his way into the emergency room to KITT's bedside, refusing to take "no" for an answer from nurses who demanded to know if he was a family member (and were pretty sure he wasn't), but fortunately a Foundation representative, Dr. Jane Monroe, had arrived just before the situation escalated to security guards pulling weapons on him. She gave KITT (still unconscious) a cursory physical exam, determined that his vital signs were strong enough for transport, and convinced the senior hospital physician on call to sign him out; and she, at least, was smart enough to let Michael ride in the van along with his partner, holding KITT's limp hand the entire way to Billings and murmuring over and over again that he was safe now, that Michael wasn't going to let anything else happen to him, that everything was going to be okay — two truths and a possible lie, but under the circumstances Michael considered that a pretty good ratio. 

The AI had regained consciousness only twice during the whole trip. The first time had been a startling clear but, as far as Michael could tell, meaningless statement: a string of twelve numbers and a pause, followed by six more numbers. He'd tried to memorize them, but only managed to capture the last sequence. The second time had been as the van skirted the perimeter of Billings itself, with soft snowflakes drifting down from the sky beyond the black windows: KITT's eyes had opened, turning to Michael with that same haunted intensity, and when Michael had fallen silent he'd whispered painfully: "I thought I was never going to see you again." 

Tears had prickled into Michael's eyes, but he'd squeezed KITT's hand and put on his cockiest smile. "C'mon, KITT, you can't get rid of me that easily!" 

"I hoped I wouldn't." His own eyes were gleaming too, a brighter shimmer over their vibrant green. The East Coast accent and timbre and pacing, combined with that lower-pitched voice, produced a dissonant effect that sent an uneasy chill down Michael's spine. "He told me that he'd kill you. And he very nearly did." 

Michael had opened his mouth to reply, but KITT's eyelids had already drifted closed, his head falling to one side again, facing away from his friend. He didn't open them or speak again during the next long span of hours, even while being put through an extensive battery of medical tests, and results of which were in some ways encouraging: he was a healthy adult human male, suffering from nothing worse, in a physical sense, than an empty digestive tract and dehydration. Monroe had examined him in more detail upon arrival at the compound and estimated that he'd been without food for at least forty-eight hours and without water for over twenty-four, so the first order of business had been to hook him up to an IV and rehydrate him with saline solution and electrolytes, followed by a parenteral nutrition drip. By the time that was finished the blood test results had come back: generally normal, except for his adrenaline levels, his cortisol levels, and his white cell count, which were all elevated consistent with sustained physical and psychological stress. 

Monroe's physical exam had noted the long-healed scar that ran along his hairline at the forehead, but it was the X-rays that picked up the extra hardware inside his skull, embedded in his cerebral cortex. It was a finding that had left Monroe baffled, until she'd called Bonnie in — and KITT's technician had recognized their configuration instantly. 

"They're computer chips," she explained to Michael in a low voice. "Six memory chips and two processors, one on either side, with… well, as far as I can tell they're some kind of non-organic neural surrogates, running deeper into the frontal lobes." 

Michael scowled at her. "As far as you can tell? You don't know?" 

She shook her head, frustration writ clear on her sculpted features. They were sitting in a comfortably appointed bedroom that had been converted into a temporary hospital unit, one on either side of KITT's bed; he lay between them with his eyes closed, still unresponsive, while machines tracked his heart rate (a little on the high side of normal) and blood pressure (slightly elevated) and the patterns of his brain waves (strange enough that Monroe wasn't even willing to make a guess at what the readings meant). "I've never seen anything like this before — if you'd asked me if it was even possible, I would have told you you were crazy to suggest it. But he has computer circuitry integrated into his brain, and it all appears to be fully functional and active." 

Michael looked down, scanning the inert body of the slender man between them, then back up at Bonnie, who looked as exhausted as he felt. Past her shoulder, beyond the room's elegantly curtained windows, the snowy landscape of the mansion's grounds glittered white beneath a brilliantly sunny blue sky. "Is that why KITT's in there? Did he… get transferred, somehow?" 

Another shake of her head. "I don't know. You're convinced it's him, but —" 

"It's him," Michael stated with absolute conviction. He wanted to take his partner's hand again, but both Bonnie and Monroe had warned that physical contact might be ill-advised at this point. "I _know_ him, Bonnie — I know how he talks, and I know how he thinks… and there's no doubt in my mind." He decided that telling her about the uncanny similarity of this new face to his own dreams would only earn him a side-eye of epic proportions, so he elected not to mention it at all. "The only question now is, how? And how do we get him back where he belongs?" 

"We have to find the car first," she reminded him. 

He shrugged. "A car like the Knight Industries Two Thousand isn't exactly easy to miss. We'll find it." 

"I hope you're right." She was studying KITT's mortal body in her turn, her strongly drawn eyebrows tightening into a frown. "This wasn't an accident. This was done deliberately, and frankly the prospect of why it was done at all worries me — a lot."  

"If you've got a theory, let's hear it." 

"You say the car was being driven. But by who? A human pilot, or by the computer inside? And if it was the computer, what program was operating it, if KITT had been displaced into this body? Was it an AI at all? Or was it the consciousness that formerly inhabited the body KITT currently possesses?" 

A chill raised the hairs on the back of Michael's neck. He'd been too busy worrying about and watching over KITT to devote much thought to the 'how' of the situation, but now… "You think it's a human mind in there?" 

"It's the most logical interpretation of the observable facts. But it's worse than that, Michael," Bonnie continued grimly. "Much worse." 

"What could be worse than…?" A glance down at the wan face nearly as pale as the pillow, steeling himself against the urge to reach out and use his fingertips to brush the fall of blond hair off of the man's unconscious forehead. KITT's forehead, now. It should have been impossible to believe, but those few words exchanged in the underground lab and one good look into the currently closed green eyes had driven the truth home better than any technical argument ever could. This _was_ KITT: he knew it down to his soul. 

"The chips inside his head are based on Knight Industries bubble memory tech." Her voice was calm, but Michael knew her well enough to sense the distress and the anger behind those evenly spoken words. "Stolen tech. It has to be. And they were installed over a year ago, according to Dr. Monroe. Whoever engineered this was carrying out a long-term plan — and set things up so that he'd stand the best chance of being able to transfer himself into KITT's systems, specifically." 

Horror made the skin on the back of Michael's neck feel like it was physically crawling. He stared at Bonnie, sickened. "That's…" 

"Ingenious," a soft hoarse voice whispered from the bed between them. Startled, they both looked down to find the human body's eyes still closed, the face still impassive — but the narrow lips were moving and it was KITT's inflections that emerged on each exhalation, the pitch wrong but the accent eerily familiar. "And as you can see… completely effective." 

"KITT…" Michael looked to Bonnie for permission, and receiving her nod, reached down and carefully took the human body's right hand between both his own. It felt as frail as a wounded bird, the bones as fragile as pipes of glass. "It's okay, buddy, We're both here. You're safe now…" 

"Safe?" His eyes flickered open, staring toward the ceiling for a moment before shifting to his right, to Michael's face. As they focused on his former driver that desperate distressed quality returned to their depths, quivering on the verge of terror although his delivery was superficially controlled. "I'm dying, Michael. Every second, with every breath — I can feel this body decaying around me. It's what he wanted to escape. And —" A cough of sharp laughter, bitter as poison. "— he succeeded." 

Michael met his gaze with unwavering determination, trying to convey reassurance and protective strength through the contact of their hands while his mind processed the implications of KITT's statements as quickly as possible. "Not for long, pal. We'll find him, and when we do we'll get you your old body back — count on it." He gently squeezed the former robot's icy fingers. "But to do that we need his name. Did he tell you what it was? Did you overhear it while they were…"? 

KITT began to tremble again, but with a visible effort of will he brought his traitorous flesh under control. "The scientists working on me only called him by his last name, but when we… exchanged places…" A bone-deep shudder, not quite quelled. "… he took no pains to hide his identity from me. He didn't expect me to survive long enough to divulge it." 

"Yeah, well, he didn't count on how strong you are." He started rubbing the back of KITT's hand with his thumb, trying to soothe the terrible tension lurking beneath its skin. "And he's in for one helluva surprise when we catch up with him." 

" _If_ you catch up with him." KITT closed his eyes, the pupils darting back and forth beneath the shuttered lids as his finely drawn blond eyebrows drew painfully together. After a moment he intoned, as if reading from a page just placed before him: "James Eugene Rosseau. Twenty-nine years old, graduate of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, graduated top of his class in… in…" 

"Rosseau?" Bonnie asked sharply. "Of the Massachusetts Rosseaus?" 

Michael glanced to her in surprise. "You know them?" 

"I know _of_ them — Eugene Rosseau Sr. built a financial empire on cutting-edge robotics technology." 

KITT nodded once, his eyes still closed. "That's correct, Bonnie. Eugene Rosseau Sr. is his father, and his older brother is Eugene Rosseau Jr. Both of whom, according to the memory traces I'm able to access, played no part in this affair." 

"Then who did?" Michael tried to keep as much frustration out of his tone as possible, concerned that KITT might misinterpret it as being directed against him rather than at what had been done to him. "This kind of tech doesn't come out of nowhere. Somebody had to develop it, and somebody had to supply it." 

"And install it," Bonnie added. She did what Michael hadn't quite dared to do, reaching out to lightly lift the fall of hair from KITT's forehead, revealing the visible scar that tracked along his hairline. "According to Dr. Monroe this isn't field surgery: it was done with a great deal of skill and refinement. If James Rosseau masterminded this, he had plenty of expert help." 

"Help stealing the chip specs, help creating them, help installing them — and help abducting KITT," Michael concluded, and this time he couldn't keep the growl of fury out of his voice.  

"Michael —?" Hesitant. Fearful. KITT's eyes opened again, turning to Michael's face as his hand, for the first time, returned the pressure of his former driver's fingers.  

At once he understood. "It's okay, KITT." He reached out and tenderly stroked blond hair back from the AI's forehead with the palm of his hand, his heart swelling with such love and sympathy that for a moment he found it hard to speak. "It's not your fault. None of this is your fault." He glanced to Bonnie, saw the fierce determination in her expression, then returned his gaze to KITT's face with as reassuring a smile as he could muster. "We're going to find whoever's responsible for doing this to you, and when we do they'll be sorry they were ever born. That's a promise." 

There it was again, that gleam sharpening the green of his eyes; KITT shook his head once, closing his eyelids tightly, but that only forced a tear free to track down his pale right cheek. "I don't — I want to believe you, but…" 

"Believe it." He infused the words with the full force of his dedication, his affection, his devotion, and squeezed KITT's hand again until those pained eyes opened to regard him once more. "Do you trust me?" 

A blink, and then, for the first time, the hint of a smile on those thin lips, surprisingly charming even with its aura of anguish. "You know I do," he replied softly, repeating the words that Michael himself had offered six months ago, on the night KITT had approached him sexually for the first time. "With my life. With everything." 

"Then trust me now," Michael smiled, completing the nearly ritual exchange with KITT's own words before leaning in to kiss the tear from his cheek chastely. Almost. "We'll look after you. Now try to get some sleep. I'll stay with you until you're safely in dreamland, then transfer to the couch over there. Don't worry," he added quickly as the panic flared again in those jade eyes, "I won't be far away. If you need me, all you have to do is say my name and I'll be right here. Is that okay?" 

Visibly gathering his courage, he nodded. "Yes, Michael. I… I understand." 

Fierce fury surged in Michael's heart: that anybody could inflict this kind of suffering on such a bright, beautiful, graceful spirit… Outwardly he smiled again and ruffled the hair atop KITT's head. "That's my boy," he said warmly, ignoring Bonnie's tolerant _Oh, you!_ glance in his direction. "Whenever you start getting scared, just remember that you're with us now, and you're safe."

Bonnie leaned a little closer, her gaze intent on his profile. "KITT, what is the prime astral coordinate?"

He tore his gaze away from Michael to regard her keenly for a couple of seconds, before replying crisply: "The pole star determines the course of the celestial river, no matter the time or the tide."

She nodded, and in response to Michael's baffled expression explained: "It's a security phrase built into his core process files — a way to identify him by remote, or if his CPU gets separated from the car." Reaching down, she took the AI's left hand in both her own. "We won't let anybody hurt you, KITT. Everybody here is dedicated to guarding your safety. You don't have anything to be afraid of." 

"I'll keep that in mind, Bonnie," KITT whispered in his low husky voice, but his gaze remained fixed on Michael's face… and as his eyes drifted closed again, Michael could only pray that nothing dark and dangerous would come for him in his dreams, that unknown country where his friends and his lover had no hope of following. 

When the screaming began a few hours later, Michael discovered that his intuition had been, as usual, absolutely accurate. 


	3. Chapter 3

The couch in question was elegant rather than comfortable, but it was parallel to KITT's bed and Michael was physically and emotionally drained, so as soon as his head hit the cushion he was out like a light. The last thing he saw before his eyes closed was Bonnie, still sitting at KITT's bedside, watching the AI sleep with his head turned toward his former driver's position, his hand outstretched over the edge of the mattress as if pleading for continued contact. 

It wasn't that Michael didn't want to provide that contact: in fact he wanted to take KITT's current body in his arms and shelter it from the world, forever — anything to ease the fear and anguish in Rosseau's eyes. But he couldn't, in part because he was on the verge of collapse, in part because he wasn't sure how KITT would react to that kind of body-to-body intimacy even if it was intended to comfort, and in part because of shame over his own possible reactions. KITT was terrified, bewildered, struggling to adjust to a whole new paradigm of being, and as his partner and best friend Michael was determined to do everything in his power to ease that transition… but a traitorous voice in the back of his mind wouldn't stop whispering: _He was your lover, and he really_ ** _does_** _have amazing eyes, and we both know you're not gay but for him, maybe… you'd give it the good ol' college try._  

No matter how many times he'd stuffed the voice down and shut it up over the past twenty hours, it kept coming back. That psychological struggle was part of what had completely worn him out, and in the tiny interval between closing his eyes and succumbing to exhaustion he found himself sinking into a mire of anger and guilt.  

 _Dammit, Michael, get a grip! This isn't about you! You'd better get your shit sorted out fast, because putting any of this on his shoulders is_ ** _not_** _an option!_  

And if Bonnie ever suspected… oh God, that didn't bear thinking about. He had time for one grimace and squirm of his shoulders before sleep overwhelmed him like a wave, dragging him down into the realm of dream and memory. 

****************************** 

Cold waves crashing on a beach, with night coming down. Washingon State, a little over four months ago. The Melissa Miller case — or rather, its aftermath. Michael had sat on the verge of a walkway overlooking the sand with his legs hanging over the edge, a paper cup of rapidly cooling coffee in his hands, and gloomy thoughts roiling around in his head. It was a dark September day and there was nobody else around, which suited him perfectly in his current state of mind: at the moment he didn't feel fit for, or worthy of, the solace of human company. 

But human companionship wasn't the only option in his case. He'd left KITT parked about a quarter mile down the beachfront forty-five minutes ago, but he wasn't really surprised to hear a familiar soft engine whine approaching his position, followed by a pause ten metres away as KITT analyzed his location, body language, and lack of responsiveness to his partner's proximity. He was even less surprised to hear the car resume its approach, then mount the low curb and cross the paved walkway in his direction.  

A nudge, barely touching his elbow. The port point of KITT's prow. He kept his limbs tucked in and didn't respond, so the AI piloted his considerably larger body right up beside him, lining up his nose with the mid-point of Michael's thigh and silently providing his driver with something to literally lean on.  

Michael didn't react to the physical contact, nor did he look round. He kept his eyes fixed on the setting sun, which was going down in a streaked bank of leaden grey clouds, and said nothing. He didn't feel that there was really anything to say. 

 _"It wasn't your fault,"_ KITT said quietly after precisely one minute, his voice carrying that strange resonance it sometimes picked up when projected outside the passenger compartment of the car. 

Michael refused comfort for a few seconds longer, determined to sulk — and then sighed, a sigh from the gut. KITT was impossible to resist for long. He leaned fully against the car's prow and reached out along the hood, his hand automatically coming to rest just above the scanner whose tracking red glow was reflected in the gleaming black hull that fronted its aperture, knowing that his touch conveyed sensation to the car's AI through its capacitive structural feedback field. "Yeah. It is. If I'd been just a little faster —" 

 _"No,"_ KITT stated just as firmly and considerably more tartly, _"it was not. Ewing drew his gun and fired as soon as it was clear of the holster and aligned with her skull. If he had paused for even the span of a full second, you might perhaps have been able to reach him. As it was, doing so would have been physically impossible. No, Michael,"_ he repeated in a gentler tone, _"Melissa's death was unpreventable. And the blame lies with the man who killed her, not with you for trying, albeit hopelessly, to save her life."_  

"It's just…" He shook his head, his stomach rising a little as the memory played out on the screen of his mind in full gruesome detail. She'd been a woman he'd held in his arms, a woman whose warm lips he'd kissed. "It's been a long time since I've seen something like that. I guess the sight of someone getting their skull blown open is never something you get used to." 

 _"I should sincerely hope not!"_  

Shaking off the ache of memory, he glanced sidelong at the tracking reflection of the car's 'eye'. "Does it bother you?" 

 _"I've been programmed to protect and preserve human life — but also to calculate the odds. And when rescue is impossible…"_ A long moment of silence. _"It was… disquieting. But I am not designed to feel regret."_  

Every so often he was forcibly reminded of KITT's inhumanity. That didn't mean he had to believe everything he was told, and he'd learned that sometimes the AI's most profound statements lay in what was implied rather than what was outright expressed. He laid his hand flat on the hood, rubbing its satin finish in a slow circle. "I'm sorry you had to see that." 

 _"Is there anything I can do?"_  

Smiling slightly, he slid his hand down to run his fingers along the horizontal edge of MBS just above the scanner's tireless sweep. He loved every contour of KITT's form, each sharp edge and graceful curve, and at times like this — as rare as they were — tracing those shapes eased his weary soul in ways that were difficult to understand and impossible to explain… and more than that, he loved the elegant spirit that dwelt within the perfect forms. "You're doing it already, partner," he murmured fondly. "You're doing it already." 

They'd watched the sun set in silence and then set out for California again. Michael had put his head down and slept in the drivers seat as securely as a child, watched by superhuman powers, cradled in the all-encompassing embrace of his best friend as the miles fell away beneath them. KITT wasn't taking him home. He was already there. 

****************************** 

He opened his eyes to darkness, the dream's reminder of their connection filling his mind with disquiet. Everything had just changed. The whole world had shifted ninety degrees on its axis, at least. Could he even call KITT his lover now, when the alignment between their physical forms had been so drastically altered? Would KITT in a male human body desire him in a sexual way? The odds were against it: James Rosseau had almost certainly been heterosexual, and the research KITT had conducted and shared with Michael months ago when they'd decided to pursue their affair suggested that sexual orientation was inbuilt. If that was the case, KITT in Rosseau's body might feel an emotional attachment just as profound as when he'd been embodied in a robot, but absolutely no inclination to express that attachment sexually. And if he didn't… 

He looked toward the bed in the middle of the room; Bonnie was nowhere to be seen, and in the pool of light from a bedside lamp he could see that the male body upon it was flat out, evidently still asleep, face turned away from him now. His heart moved in his breast, orienting toward it like a magnet toward the North Star. The prospect of losing that connection, as strange and unique as it had been, hurt. A lot. But it couldn't be forced, and KITT would have a thousand other things to concentrate on right now. 

 _And do I even want him to be…?_ He scowled at the thought. _I'm not gay. We've established that. Definitely_ ** _not_** _gay._  

That sly conflicting whisper surged back to the forefront from deeper within: _Except when it comes to him. When he's involved, all bets are off, right?_ The fantasies KITT had walked him through (skilfully, ardently, marvellously) had all been of male/male sex, and Michael had been a wholehearted participant in those. The aggregate memory of them flowed in on that voice, filling him with a surge of lustful heat that was definitely tied to the physical vessel that contained their source, now lying only ten feet away. _If I had the chance to make them real… would I?_  

He closed his eyes again and shifted onto his back, covering his eyes with his left arm and shoving the question firmly to the side. For one thing, it was ridiculous — for another thing, he had better things to do than gnaw at his own insecurities. Sleep. Sleep would be a really good idea right about now… 

After a timeless interval that felt like eternity the heat in his groin faded to a dull glow and unconsciousness descended again.  

But not for long. 

"No… no…" 

A low moan penetrated the veils of sleep, but the pitch did not fit the template of anybody in Michael's mind. He turned his face away without opening his eyes, his whole body yearning for more rest. 

"No… I won't…" 

A thrill of disquiet quivered through his core. That voice… he didn't know it, but the accent… the inflection of each syllable — 

"…I won't let you…" Volume rising, more urgent, almost a sob.  

"KITT?" Bonnie's voice, sleep-blurred and alarmed. Hasty footsteps crossing the carpeted floor, just before the stranger's voice rose to a sudden scream: 

"I won't let you! I won't — I won't — _GET OUT OF MY MIND!_ " 

Michael was on his feet before he knew what was happening, a fleet of alarms going off in his brain like klaxons. Oh God, KITT — KITT was lying in front of him, small and male and mortal, thrashing his head and struggling and still screaming as if his throat was being cut, inarticulate wails strident with agony. Bonnie was already at his side, catching hold of his clawed left hand and gripping it tightly between both her own, trying to soothe him, shouting his name to be heard over his terrified and enraged cries… but it wasn't until Michael caught hold of his right hand a couple of seconds later that he suddenly quieted, the taut arc of his body collapsing back onto the mattress like a puppet whose strings had been cut. His eyes flew open and fixed their gaze on his driver's face, so wide that white completely ringed their irises, unblinking. They scanned his face with an eerie sweep, right to left to right, darting hectically.  

"Michael." He was panting, each word a choked gasp. "Run. He's going — to kill you. You've got to — run — save yourself —" 

He held KITT's trembling hand between his own as tightly as he could, pitching his voice low, a trick that usually succeeded in catching and holding people's attention — when those people were human, at any rate. "KITT, he's not here. It's just you, me and Bonnie. Take a look around you: we're all alone, and we're someplace safe." 

After a moment he turned his neck stiffly, his eyes tracking to Bonnie's anxious expression, then beyond her to the room itself. "No. No. It didn't happen. This is all a simulation. It can't — it can't —" 

Michael began to rub his hand, gently providing him with corroborating sensation. "It's real," he said quietly as those huge green eyes returned to his face again. "I'm sorry, buddy, but —" 

"I told them to stop." He wasn't panting anymore but his breath was still coming fast and deep, trembling in each spoken word, a rush of narrative almost in a monotone. "That I wasn't authorized to grant access to my central processing unit. When they broke through the firewall I begged them to stop. I can't feel pain. I can't. I… I screamed. I kept screaming. And they wouldn't stop." 

"KITT," Bonnie whispered. Michael didn't think it was intended to interrupt what the AI was saying; it was a soft exclamation of horror, rising from a knowledge of computer processes that Michael lacked — and which frankly, at the moment, he was glad he did not possess. He was suffering enough just watching and listening. 

KITT continued as if she hadn't spoken, his gaze now fixed on Michael's eyes. "Once inside, they co-opted my interrupt engine and cut off all external input resources, one by one. He kept talking to me the whole time. He thanked me. He told me that I was going to make it possible for him to leave behind his mortal prison — for him to live forever. He said that he'd been keeping track of me for over three years, gathering information on my technologies, determining if my process matrix was complex enough to sustain a human consciousness. He said that even if he ended up dying, he'd finally be free of the body he detested."

A flame of hatred began to burn in Michael's chest, small but white-hot. He kept any trace of it out of his expression. KITT needed a listener right now, not the explosion of another person's outrage. 

"I told him that you needed me." Emotion started to creep back into his voice, wretchedness and an unmistakeable note of despair — and shame, cutting Michael to the heart. "That he couldn't destroy me. I told him… everything. I would have done anything to convince him to reconsider his plan, so that I could return to you. He laughed, and told me that love is the most useless human emotion of all — and that he found it ironic that I, a creature that should have embodied perfection, had been infected with its sexual taint. He told me that he was going to do me a favour, by freeing me from the chains that held me in bondage. That he was going to cleanse me and purify me. That he'd fill my vessel with a spirit that could take it to its full potential. 

"I begged, Michael. But he derided my imperfection — and they did it anyway."  

"KITT…" He couldn't take it any longer. He sat down on the edge of the bed, letting go of KITT's hand to draw that slender body into the shelter of his arms at last. KITT lay limply against him, letting him curve his right hand around the back of Rosseau's blond head and guide it to rest against his left shoulder. Bonnie retained her grip on his left hand, leaning over the mattress to maintain contact. "I'm sorry, buddy. God, I'm so sorry! I should have been there, I should have stopped them —" 

"No, Michael." A dull whisper, his eyes drifting closed again. "You couldn't. They would have killed you. He was…" A quaver of agonized sorrow. " _I'm_ sorry. I've failed you. I should have let myself be extinguished. This… this frail shell… what can I do for you now?" His voice rose to a breathless cry, harsh with bitter self-recrimination: "Nothing! I can bleed! I can be broken! He was right! He was —" 

"No," Michael insisted, letting his ferocity infuse his voice, transmitting loving tenderness through his touch. "You're still here, and that's all that matters." He glanced at Bonnie, who looked like she was about to cry herself. "We love you, and we're going to get your body back. Everything's gonna be —" 

"But I remembered you, and I couldn't let it happen." Back to a monotone. Michael wasn't even sure that KITT had heard him. "Even when this body was the only refuge I had left. Even when I took my first breath and felt it dying, decaying all around me. Michael, please — I had to… I had to…" 

"I know, KITT." He started to rock his friend gently, his heart swelling to the breaking point. "I know you did. It's okay. I know." 

A shudder, and a sob against his chest. "Even afterwards, our minds remained linked. Some kind of harmonic chip resonance enabled by physical proximity. The shock of the process was so great… we were… too weak to pull away from each other completely. I don't remember anything but his consciousness, barely active, resting alongside mine, until he perceived you entering the lab — and woke up. That's what woke me up too. I saw you through his — my — senses… and I knew that he intended to run you down." 

He opened his eyes and tipped his head back against Michael's hand, looking up at him with bleak despair. "His thoughts. Darkness. He'll destroy anything that crosses his path. He's like KARR — worse than KARR, because no human mind should be that pitiless. Trying to kill you… he believed he was doing me a favour, a kind of repayment for the service I'd rendered. He said, _If you're determined to live I can at least break this chain that binds you._ He… I can't…" A pained grimace, and a near-curse: "I can't _think!_ So cold. So…"  

Bonnie gave his hand a squeeze and spoke quietly, directing the statement at Michael: "I'm going to get him a blanket." Michael nodded, and held KITT closer against the shiver that wracked his slender frame when she released his hand and headed toward the room's linen closet.  

"Easy, pal… it's okay. She's coming right back. We're not gonna leave you alone." 

"So cold." He sounded as if he was falling asleep again, which Michael considered a mercy. "And you're so warm…" 

There: the breaking deep within him. He swallowed the sting of tears and pressed a tender kiss to his best friend's pale forehead. "I'm not going anywhere. I'm staying right here. You're safe, KITT. You've gotta trust me on that." 

He turned in Michael's arms, huddling closer. "… with my life…" 

And Michael's heart fell in helpless pieces at his feet. If Bonnie noticed the gleam of moisture in his eyes when she came back with the blanket and helped to lay KITT back down again, tucking it in warmly around him, she had the good grace not to mention that painful fact. 

He held KITT's hand for the rest of the night, snatching bits of sleep in his chair. Sometime close to dawn he felt hands — Bonnie's — guide him into a more comfortable position, slumped over with his head resting on KITT's pillow, and cover him with another blanket. He couldn't even manage a murmur of gratitude. All he could do was relax into the comfort, eyes still closed, breathing in a scent that had to be from Rosseau's hair and skin, knowing it was wrong but feeling it twine around his broken heart anyway and bind it fast. 


	4. Chapter 4

KITT hesitated at the foot of the rolling stairs leading up into the Knight 2000 jet, scanning the long expanse of the silver machine where it loomed overhead, cutting off the winter sun. "Michael, I'm really not sure this is —"

Michael looked down at his partner and bit his tongue, keeping his tone even. Well, nearly even. Maybe a bit of exasperation crept in around the edges. "KITT, we've been over this: I'm not driving back to California in a borrowed car, especially with you in the passenger seat, bored out of your newly acquired skull. It's flying or nothing." 

"Are you sure?" He looked like a deer that's just caught the scent of a wolf, his eyes wide, a subtle bowstring tension in his limbs suggesting the barely controlled urge to flee. "Because in the event of a mechanical failure —" 

Devon stepped smoothly into the breach, moving up on the other side of the skittish AI and taking his left elbow in a friendly but firm grip. "I assure you, KITT, there's absolutely nothing to be afraid of." 

"I'm not afraid," KITT scowled, while every line of his body suggested otherwise. "I'm simply being cautious." 

"I've flown in this jet a hundred times if I've flown once, without the slightest hint of any sort of trouble. I have complete trust in the technicians who service and maintain it — and so should you." He applied gentle pressure with his hand, urging KITT up the stairs. "Now go on. We'll be right behind you." 

Michael recognized that expression as soon as it crossed KITT's face. It was the _I can dig in my heels like a mule and refuse to move an inch_ expression that he'd never actually seen before, only heard in the car's voice — and indeed Rosseau's feet were solidly planted on the ground, his shoulders squared, his chin up defiantly. "Surely there must be another —" 

"Go," Devon said. He didn't say it loudly. He didn't say it angrily. But he had the alpha male intonation down pat, and when he shifted his hand to the small of KITT's back the shorter man turned a dubious gaze on him, looked pleadingly at Michael, found no sympathy there — and straightened his shoulders in a different way, a stance of courage gathered in both hands, before starting up the steps with a measured pace. Michael felt a surge of almost ridiculously delirious pride on his behalf, while sharing a triumphant glance with Devon: KITT had always been leery of flying, even as a robotic car which would have stood a far better chance of surviving a crash than the fragile human body he was currently piloting into the jet.  

Following KITT (and trying to keep his eyes from fixating on the masculine sway of the tight little ass inside KITT's stylish black dress pants below the waist of his gunmetal grey leather jacket, no, _definitely not gay_ ), Michael had to admit that they both might have gone crazy over the last three days were it not for Devon's intervention. Oh, certainly Devon had kept his distance for the first two and a half days after KITT's full awakening — as he'd later explained, he'd been both occupied with organizing the hunt for the Knight Industries Two Thousand and concerned about overwhelming KITT with too many people after such a profound shock — but he'd more than made up for it when he'd come to visit KITT-as-human for the first time, shortly after noon on the day that Bonnie was due to return to California in advance of the rest of the team, to coordinate the preparation of the Knight Industries Two Thousand's back-up body for deployment in the field. He had entered KITT's room with a courteous greeting for the two born humans, but his attention had clearly been on the AI who sat beside one of the tall windows, still looking fragile and wary, although most of the terror had at last faded from his keen gaze under the constant ministrations and reassurances of his closest friends. 

Michael would never forget that moment of meeting, or rather of reacquaintance. When Devon Miles was angry or determined there was no man more fearsome in the world, in Michael's opinion, and when he was feeling kindly toward someone there was no man more genuinely warm and charming. So he hadn't been surprised by the radiance of Devon's smile as he inclined his torso toward KITT, laid a solicitous hand on the human-embodied AI's shoulder, and gently inquired: "My dear boy — how _are_ you?" 

And KITT's face had absolutely lit up, with sparkling eyes and a smile of unabashed pleasure of a quality that Michael had never seen before. The connection was so immediate and so positive that Michael had been forced to smack himself sharply upside the head when he started feeling jealous — of _Devon!_ — even though he had to admit the advantage to it: that KITT didn't mind his driver's absence so much when the older man was there, allowing Michael to sneak away for a bit of down time and a couple of hours of much needed sleep. Once he got the protect-what's-mine reaction damped down somewhat Michael could see that their interpersonal dynamic was that of a child with a trusted father figure, and indeed they spoke a great deal about Wilton Knight, his adventurous life, and his hopes and dreams. The tales held KITT rapt, and Devon's witty delivery elicited the first laughter Michael had ever heard from his partner, a sharp bright sound that made his heart do a slow thrilling flip in his chest: it sounded so perfectly natural and perfectly KITT, yet perfectly human at the same time. KITT, busy chasing down a point that Devon had just made, didn't seem to notice what he'd done — but the quick glance Devon sent in Michael's direction, and the more tender smile, indicated that it had been recognized and noted. 

Michael wasn't quite sure how to feel about that laughter. Was it a good sign, or a warning beacon that KITT was becoming too deeply embedded in the body he now wore? Bonnie, a scientist at heart, had begun testing KITT's limits immediately on his first full wakeful day in her presence, and had quickly determined that Rosseau's most basic learned behaviours such as balancing, walking, and bowel and bladder control, had remained intact following the transfer. Similarly, KITT retained more complex knowledge sets: he could shave and shower and dress himself, and he knew how to use cutlery, with a set of table manners that clearly harked back to Rosseau's fussy East Coast upper class upbringing. Not that this meant he dawdled over his food: quite the opposite, in fact. Watching the former robot methodically demolish a cheeseburger and wedge fries for lunch on his first wakeful day, Michael had gleefully noted to himself that now he had plenty of ammunition for return fire the next time KITT got on his case about wolfing down his food, because by God, if the AI paused for more than two breaths in the course of a meal Michael would have been flat-out astounded. 

At dinner on KITT"s second night up and about he'd paused in addressing his own plate to rest one elbow on the table and his chin on the palm of that hand, watching KITT with pointed fascination while he made short work of a chicken breast, mashed potatoes and buttered peas. Bonnie, eating more slowly, had watched them both with a hint of a knowing smile. She could guess what was coming. Wisely, she'd chosen not to interfere. 

At last KITT paused just long enough to cock an eyebrow in Michael's direction and snap out a terse query: "Is there a problem, Michael?" 

"Oh, no." He shook his head, chin still firmly seated. "No problem whatsoever."  

"Good," KITT said, and went back to it. 

"I was just wondering…" 

"Hm?" around a mouthful of peas. 

"How James Rosseau managed to keep _that_ figure with _that_ appetite. Because believe me, you do not look like a guy who inhales a whole chicken dinner in thirty seconds flat." 

KITT swallowed before responding peevishly: "For one thing, he exercised every day, a regimen I intend to resume as soon as I have access to proper facilities. For another, it's been three minutes and twelve seconds since we picked up our cutlery, I've only eaten thirty-two percent of the food on my plate, and unlike _some_ people I know, I don't view the act of nourishing myself as a matter of personal entertainment, to be prolonged like sexual intercourse or a trip to the circus." 

Michael had winced dramatically. "Ouch, buddy. _Ouch._ " 

"And besides," KITT continued, his attention now on his former driver rather than on his plate, which was an improvement as far as Michael was concerned, "you're the last person to presume to comment on my eating etiquette, considering the fact that your own table manners harken back to the Neanderthal era at best." 

The wince became a sincere scowl. "Are you saying I'm a messy eater?" 

"I'm saying that you once left a burger wrapper — with bits of burger still attached — in my back seat for a week and a half." 

"KITT, that was —" 

"After I asked you to remove it. Repeatedly." 

"That was the first month we worked together!" 

A wry quirk of one corner of his mouth. "Nevertheless…" 

"I got better," Michael protested. 

"Barely," KITT groused, his gaze returning to his plate. Bonnie was grinning, and Michael went back to his own dinner with the distinct feeling that he'd come out on the losing side of the exchange… but KITT had smiled, and that made it all worthwhile. 

Smiles were a rare thing, bittersweet and definitely to be treasured. The well of KITT's pain was so deep that it took Bonnie and Michael, constantly at his side and pouring reassurance and love onto his wounded spirit, almost a full thirty-six hours to soothe him to the point where he didn't look like he was ready to break into whole-body shudders at any moment. His mind was reeling under the continuous impact of signals from (as Bonnie explained) his human amygdala and other primitive brain structures, blindsided by waves of despair and rage and terror, unable to control the traumatic recall of the transfer experience. Michael, who'd learned the hard way how to handle awful memories after Nam, was able to help with that, and Bonnie, by firmly and constantly phrasing KITT's current experiences in terms he could understand but which often left Michael in the dust, enabled him to come to intellectual terms with what was happening to him.  

And he'd stabilized, faster than Michael would have thought possible. Frankly it left him a little in awe; he'd once told Bonnie that he loved KITT in part for his amazing resilience, his ability to be shattered and to rise up again better and stronger, and this was an example of that inner strength _par excellence_. It only made Michael love him more intensely, which wasn't exactly where he wanted to be right now — KITT needed him as a friend, not as a romantic partner — but he couldn't help it any more than he could help obeying Newton's laws of physics. He was in love, and every time he gazed into those clear eyes, whether keen or pain-clouded, he felt the point being driven home even more.  

Which brought him to the present moment, trying too hard not to look at KITT's ass. It was probably a fine ass no matter which team you batted for. Certainly it was getting Michael's motor revving, which was what he got for letting KITT lead him through multiple episodes of steamy fantasy visualizations of his partner in human guise, doing spectacularly sexy things to Michael and having equally dirty things done to him in return. He was keyed to pair that voice with those images, that prissy accent with acts that were carnal in the extreme, so was it really any surprise that his body was confused as hell now? Of course not! And it sure as hell didn't help that he might as well have had a picture of James Rosseau in front of him when he'd dreamed up his image of KITT as a flesh-and-blood male. Now _that_ coincidence was too weird to seriously contemplate, but right now he didn't have time to consider it, because KITT had stepped into the body of the jet and Michael had to guide him into a seat and sit down on his immediate right, doing his best not to notice the way KITT moved, as lithe as a cat, or to wonder if Rosseau had possessed that same highly attractive grace that made him ache to reach out and touch it.  

Devon took a seat facing them across a low table, and KITT almost flinched as someone who'd followed them up the stairs closed the external door with a solid _thunk_ of metal locking against metal. The AI looked ready to jump out of his pale skin as he gazed fixedly out the nearest tiny window, so Michael wordlessly reached over and took his partner's right hand in his left, interlacing their fingers. Those slim but strong fingers immediately closed tightly on his and KITT darted a grateful glance in his direction, along with a hint of that painfully sweet smile, before turning his attention to the tarmac again. 

Devon politely ignored the fact that they were holding hands in front of him, instead keeping up a steady flow of small talk — how Bonnie's preparations were coming in California, the room that was being set up for KITT's use at the mansion, other steps being taken to ensure his comfort — in a low steady voice, at a timbre calculated to calm edgy nerves. Michael offered comments at all the right points, but most of his attention was on his friend, whose anxiety visibly increased when the jet's engines fired up and it began to roll across the tarmac. When the jet had taxied to the runway and was accelerating for takeoff Michael briefly thought that his hand was going to end up broken: the power of KITT's grip suggested that he possessed a skeleton of steel rather than calcium. Still unspeaking, he reached across with his right hand to cover his partner's, rubbing slowly and soothingly, watching the hectic pulse in KITT's throat as he stared unblinking out the window and wondering what it must be like to experience this particular type of human fear for the first time. But KITT didn't make a sound as the plane lost contact with the ground and soared steeply into the clear sky, and Michael was proud of him for that. 

"See?" he finally said in a soft voice as the city spread out below them, and gave KITT's hand a little squeeze. "Nothing to worry about." 

"We're still a thousand feet in the air," KITT responded tersely, "and rising fast, which is far from a tenable position if this jet suffers any kind of mechanical failure." 

Devon smiled at him. "KITT, need I remind you that this airplane has been built with Knight Industries technology? The same hardware that went into your own creation. I highly doubt that we're going to suddenly plummet out of the sky." 

After a second or two some of the ramrod tension in his slender shoulders eased fractionally. "You're quite right, of course." He turned narrowed green eyes on his former driver and one corner of his thin-lipped mouth quirked upward again. "And besides, if anything _does_ go wrong at least it'll be quick." 

"That's the spirit," Michael grinned, and patted the back of his hand once more before returning his own right hand to its proper arm rest. He left his left hand exactly where it was, and that's where it stayed for the entire trip aside from two bathroom breaks and a quick lunch… which gave him plenty of time to absorb the texture of KITT's newly acquired skin and the contours of those slim fingers. It should have felt odd, holding the hand of another man, especially in Devon's presence, but instead it felt (aside from his own intellectual misgivings) completely right. Rosseau's hand was smaller than his own and fit so neatly into his grasp, and when he glanced down at them entwined — which was more frequently than he would have wanted to admit — he found the sight satisfying in a completely instinctive way.  

It was a strong clasp, friendly and supportive, a comforting contact… and he was unsure whether the sensual edge that kept creeping into his awareness was shared by the person at the other end of the connection. And of course there was no possible way to even begin to ask. He could only accept it for what it was and tell himself that he didn't want it to be more, even though the quality of lingering heat refused to be entirely banished from either his hungry mind or his foolish flesh. 


	5. Chapter 5

"Nothing?" Michael, who was currently standing to one side of Devon's massive desk with his arms angrily crossed, felt new tension gather across his shoulders. "You've been searching for KITT's body for a full week, and you're telling me you haven't turned up a —" 

Devon, calmly seated behind said desk, raised his right hand to forestall the angry flow of words, and Michael clamped his jaw shut on an expletive. "I'm afraid not, and believe me, it isn't for lack of trying. We've alerted every state police force in the continental United States as well as offering sizeable rewards to the general public for any information that might lead to its recovery, but keep in mind that there are over two hundred thousand Pontiac Firebird Trans Ams in this country that are similar enough to the Knight Industries Two Thousand to be easily confused with it. We've received floods of tips but not a single confirmed sighting." 

Bonnie, leaning back in one corner of the couch that faced the desk with her trousered legs crossed at the knee and her hands folded in her lap, added: "And we haven't picked up a single ping from his onboard transceiver. Either the car is heavily shielded, or more likely Rosseau has deactivated the signal." 

Michael began to pace, unable to contain the frustration that seethed inside his skin. "Somebody's got to know something! He didn't teleport from that hidden lab to wherever he's currently hiding. What about his father? You can't tell me that he hasn't noticed his son suddenly going missing, even if he wasn't in on this from the start." 

"I've already told you," KITT interjected from where he sat neatly on the other end of the same couch Bonnie was occupying, in a mirroring posture, "his family played no part in this. He told them nothing, and in fact went out of his way to keep them in the dark." 

"That doesn't mean they didn't suspect something," Michael insisted. 

"Unfortunately," Devon frowned, "as far as I can tell both of KITT's statements are exactly correct. I spoke with Eugene Rosseau Sr. myself, and when I told him that his son was involved in the theft of a piece of extremely sophisticated high technology he seemed perturbed by the accusation — but, I must say, not particularly surprised." 

"Not surprised?" Michael turned to face the older man and unfolded his arms, managing not to clench his fists with an effort. "You mean he's done this before?" 

Devon nodded. "This isn't the first time his son has been involved in nefarious activities. It took some keen questioning to get any kind of further answer out of him, but after I implied that I'd be pointing the FBI in his direction he became somewhat more talkative. It seems that James Rosseau had conducted industrial espionage on his father's behalf in the past."

 Bonnie's ears almost visibly pricked up. "What kind of espionage? Against which companies?" 

"He wouldn't say, and he terminated the conversation shortly thereafter." 

"He was telling the truth," KITT said, his eyes scanning the middle distance. "Accessing… I can provide a complete list of the organizations involved, Bonnie, if you want it. He employed a network of operatives scattered across the continental United States, as well as in Europe and Asia." 

Michael's fingers twitched, yearning to come to grips with an increasingly dangerous enemy. "This guy had his fingers in a lot of different pies, didn't he?" 

"He was a certified genius, Michael," KITT stated, still sounding distracted. "And his father supplied him with all the money he needed." 

"But Rosseau Sr. didn't know anything about his plans to steal your body?" 

"No. He was careful to keep that hidden from his family, in part because he was embezzling funds from his own operating capital as his father's spy to finance the endeavour." 

Devon leaned forward in his chair, gazing at the preoccupied AI intently. "KITT, what can you tell us about the path the embezzled money took through the financial system? If we can track down some of his factors, we might uncover a trail to his current base of operations." 

A few more seconds of internal scanning, before KITT blinked and refocussed on FLAG's director. "I'm sorry, Devon. I don't have the right key to access that data." 

Michael didn't blame Devon for looking disappointed, and frustrated — not with KITT, but with the situation in general. "I see. That's most unfortunate." 

"I'm sorry," KITT repeated more softly, casting down his gaze and looking ashamed. "I still haven't quite gotten the hang of navigating his memories without pertinent informational triggers. If you could supply the name of even one of his associates in that respect —" 

"Hey." Michael crossed to his side and reached down to lay a reassuring hand on his shoulder, which felt tense inside the grey leather jacket. "Don't sweat it, pal. We'll get it figured out." 

A glance upward, and an absurdly adorable scowl. "Processing data is all I'm good for, Michael. I hope you'll forgive me for holding myself accountable when I can't perform that function to an acceptable standard." 

Bonnie smiled at him and spoke gently: "He's right, KITT. You're operating inside an entirely new system that your process matrix wasn't designed for. You'll learn your way around — you just have to give it time." 

Michael patted his shoulder once, then removed his hand, as much as that hand wanted to linger. "In the meantime, we'll just have to approach this the old fashioned way: by coming up with a list of any known contacts and sussing them out one by one." 

"What about contacting the FBI?" Bonnie asked. "Maybe James Rosseau came to their attention at some point. They might be willing to share that information." 

Michael was already shaking his head. "No way. We can't take this to the Feds — if they get on Rosseau's trail, it'll lead them straight to KITT. He's the one who'd end up getting apprehended." 

"True," KITT noted dryly. "I doubt they'd accept the premise that I'm actually an innocent AI trapped in the body of a wanted suspect." 

Bonnie looked thoughtful — and perturbed. "In fact, if he wanted to take KITT out of action that might be one of the first things he'd do: inform the FBI of his whereabouts, or even plant evidence to implicate him in some crime." 

KITT winced. "Wonderful. So I might find myself with guns pointed in my face at any moment. How encouraging." 

Devon nodded. "I'll keep an eye on the FBI's arrest warrant list and alert you immediately if one is issued for James Rosseau. In that event, we may have to pull you from the —" 

KITT shook his head once, emphatically. "No! I'm not leaving Michael out there alone! I may not be able to shield him from bullets any more, but I'm a walking file on the criminal we're pursuing and I can still perform any calculations he requires." 

"Yeah," Michael frowned, "and you can also get punched, or stabbed, or shot." 

"That's a risk I'll have to take," KITT said stoutly.  

"Like hell you will!" He found himself clenching his teeth, almost snarling. This was a conversation they hadn't had yet, but one he'd been preparing himself for: he'd already stated that he intended to go after Rousseau, and he'd known that KITT would naturally want to follow. "You're going to stay right here, where nobody can —" 

KITT shot to his elegantly shod feet, and Michael suddenly found himself with five feet and eleven inches of fury in his face. "Like hell I won't! Do you honestly believe that I could bear to stand by and watch you take those kind of risks — or even worse, not know where you were at all, or what was happening to you? How _dare_ you! It's not your decision to make, and the only way you're going to stop me from following you is if you lock me in the deepest sub-basement of this mansion and throw away the key!" 

For a long moment Michael just gaped at him, struck speechless. He was peripherally aware of similar goldfish-impression expressions on the faces of his colleagues. KITT looked absolutely magnificent, his teeth slightly bared and his cheeks flushed and leonine fire in his eyes — downright passionate, ready to bite… or to be kissed. Maybe both. Slowly and carefully Michael raised both his hands, palms open in a gesture of surrender. "Okay, partner, cool your jets. I just don't want to see you get hurt out there." 

"It's not like it hasn't happened to me before," KITT snapped, still blazing. "In fact, getting damaged on your behalf is practically my job description." 

"Maybe, but you didn't feel pain before. And trust me, that's gonna make a difference." 

The rage in KITT's eyes shifted character to equally intense devotion. "It doesn't. I'd endure anything for you — and you're going to need me, Michael. I know you will." 

 _I need you right now,_ his heart whispered hotly. In the past, before the transfer, he'd teased KITT with the statement that there were times when he'd wished that his partner possessed lips just so that he could shut him up with a kiss, and now the urge to grab this human body by the shoulders and do exactly that was nearly overwhelming.  

Before either of them could speak again Devon interrupted: "KITT's quite right, Michael. It isn't your decision. It's mine. And he's also correct about his essential knowledge concerning Rosseau, knowledge which may be unlocked by elements you encounter during your investigation. He will accompany you —" 

KITT drew a deep breath and took a half-step back, to the point where his breath wasn't warming Michael's lips any more. "Thank you, Devon." 

"I'm not finished." When the AI looked round in surprise Devon fixed him with a stern look. "Doctor Alpert tells me that your coordination and reflexes are exceptionally sharp, likely as a result of your computer chip implants. You'll receive basic firearms training and hand-to-hand combat instruction before I'll let you out into the field. Michael, I'm putting you in charge of that. How long will it take to teach him the rudiments?" 

"Uh…" He had no doubt that Devon, who had been in the British Secret Intelligence Service, already had a good idea, and weighed the urge to get on the trail of KITT's body as soon as possible with the equally strong desire to give KITT every possible advantage. "One week, five hours of practice a day." 

Devon nodded again, looking pleased. "Close quarters combat, of course?" 

"With some Taekwando and Judo." He gave KITT a quelling look when the AI's gaze turned to him again. "With an emphasis on self-defence, not becoming a combat monster. If we get into a fight I want him to get himself out of it as quickly as possible." 

His commanding expression didn't seem to impress KITT too much; he folded his own arms and glared up at his taller friend. "And leave you to fend for yourself? Please! Anybody who tries to harm you will have to reckon with me, and that's all there is to it." 

Michael glanced past him to Bonnie. "You see? You see why I don't want this loose cannon in the field with me?" 

Bonnie was smiling fondly at the back of KITT's blond head. "Don't blame him — blame us. We programmed him that way, and it looks like the programming is holding." 

"You're damned right it is," KITT confirmed, his gaze never wavering from Michael's face, his narrow lips taking on a slight smile.  

"Including the part about you being as stubborn as a mule?" Michael countered. 

"Always." He reached out to lay his hand flat to Michael's chest, right over his heart. "I'm glad we understand each other. Now, Devon," and he turned away to take his seat again, looking as cool and collected as if he hadn't just been yelling at the top of his lungs, "have you turned up any further information that might be useful? Of any sort?" 

Michael told his heart to stop beating so fast. It skipped blithely on, oblivious to what constituted merely proper friendly feeling. 


	6. Chapter 6

Early the next morning, on the eighth day since KITT had been recovered, Michael walked into the mansion's main robotics lab to check on the progress of the back-up Knight Industries Two Thousand before meeting KITT in the gym to begin hand-to-hand combat training. A swarm of technicians and mechanics were still buzzing around the car's framework, which looked disturbingly naked without its MBS shell even though Michael knew full well that it was fundamentally soulless. Off to one side Bonnie sat at a work station, busily typing on a keyboard. 

"Hey," Michael greeted her — a little cautiously, because Bonnie had a bite like a snapping turtle and he _was_ off to bruise her baby, even if that baby was currently in a different body than usual. 

But she greeted him cordially enough, still typing. "Good morning, Michael. Just give me a second to finish up this report." 

He hiked the strap of his gym bag a little higher on his shoulder as he bent to peer at the screen, expecting to see incomprehensible tech gobbledygook, but instead he beheld actual paragraphs of words he stood half a chance of comprehending. "Whatcha working on?" 

"A behavioural log of KITT's progress." 

Michael read a couple of lines and scowled. "You're spelling his name wrong." Then, in response to her amused sidelong glance: "Usually it's spelled K.I.T.T., right?" 

"I needed a way to indicate his physical transformation in the logs. Designating him as 'Kitt' while he's in Rosseau's body seemed the best way to accomplish that." 

"Kitt, huh?" It shouldn't have sounded different on Michael's tongue, more… accessible, somehow. But it nonetheless did. "Good idea." 

"I thought so." She finished typing a sentence and removed her hands from the keyboard, swivelling her chair to face him. "I'm glad you stopped by. I wanted to talk to you about Kitt's combat training." 

He held up both hands defensively for the second time in as many days. "Look, I'm gonna do my best not to hurt him any more than absolutely —" 

"It's not him I'm worried about. It's you." 

That made him blink. "Come again?" 

She gave him her patented look that suggested he had all the brains of a particularly dim mushroom. "Think about it for a second: he's been watching you fight bad guys for the last four and a half years, and he possesses an eidetic memory. Do you really think he hasn't analyzed your combat style down to the last punch?" 

"Maybe, but he wasn't stuck in a human body at the time. Even if he has some idea of what I'm going to do, coordinating a set of arms and legs is going to keep him pretty damned occupied." 

"I wouldn't be so sure of that. He's had almost twenty-four hours to process the prospect of this teaching session with you, and I seriously doubt he's been sitting on his hands the whole time." 

Michael only had to think about his partner, who was the definition of the term 'crazy prepared', for about a tenth of a second to agree with her assessment. "So what _has_ he been doing?" 

"I'm not sure. I left his suite right after we had dinner last night; he said he had 'a lot to think about'. All I'm saying is that you might want to watch your back on that sparring mat." 

He shook his head ruefully, a smile tugging at one corner of his mouth. "A non-combatant against a Green Beret? In a borrowed body, no less? Bon-Bon, if you were placing bets on this match I'd say you're backing the wrong horse." 

She shook her head in turn, laughing softly as she turned back to her screen. "Tell me that after he wipes the floor with you — I'll be happy to bandage your wounds and commiserate." 

"Thanks… I think." He left her to it, still shaking his head slightly. KITT — or rather, Kitt — was a pretty amazing individual all right, but sometimes even Bonnie, who knew his inner workings better than just about anyone, could overestimate his abilities. And it sounded like Kitt's own ego could use taking down a peg or two, although Michael would be careful to do it as gently as possible. 

****************************** 

Wilton Knight's mansion was kitted out to the max, including gorgeous antique furniture, expensive paintings, carpets that cost more than any car Michael had owned in his pre-FLAG life — and a huge gymnasium incorporating all the latest in fitness equipment. At this early hour a couple of men were jogging on its track under the ceiling of clear glass, and the weights area, which was right at the entrance Michael habitually used, was occupied by six bodies in various states of fitness — 

— including one slender male figure with a shock of silky blond hair who was straddling a padded bench, his right hand braced on his right thigh, his left elbow poised just above and in front of his left knee while that arm flexed in measured tempo as he did reps with a five pound weight. His attention was focused on the small dumbbell in his hand, his bright eyes half-lidded; he looked like he was in 'the zone', and was also looking remarkably good in white track shoes, a pair of loose-fitting black sweatpants — and a grey t-shirt that was tight in all the right places.  

For a second or two Michael stood frozen in the doorway, simply staring at the way that t-shirt clung to Kitt's torso, at the effortless play of smooth muscles underneath the fabric and beneath the pale bare skin of his arm. He'd been among naked men before — in the army there'd been damned little privacy — but none of their forms had affected him this way, bringing heat to his cheeks and swelling to parts considerably further south. Suddenly he could imagine the scent of sweat on Kitt's skin, and all he wanted to do was step up behind him, sit down on the bench, bend to the line of that slender neck, and take a deep savouring breath before starting to kiss and lick that salt-taste off.  

Appalled, he almost turned and walked right back out again. He wasn't gay. He definitely wasn't gay! But if he wasn't, then why did he suddenly feel so powerfully moved in every dimension, from balls to bones? 

 _It's_ ** _him_** _. He's what I'm attracted to, no matter what shape he's wearing._ That thought made him feel a bit better, so he closed his eyes and elaborated on it: _If he could get my engine revving when he was a car, it's no surprise he could het me up when he's like this, much closer to the form of a woman. That's all this is. Just a case of —_  

"Michael?" Opening his eyes again, he saw that Kitt had noticed him and lowered the weight, frowning at him with a questioning quirk of his eyebrows. "How long have you been standing there?" 

"Ah." He suddenly found that his mouth was dry and swallowed to produce some saliva, enough to speak anyway. "Just a couple of seconds. I didn't want to interrupt you." 

A shrug, surprisingly and eloquently in character. "I was just finishing up this set. I've already had my run and stretched out, so there are only a few more reps to go. If you don't mind waiting approximately one and a half minutes…?" 

Michael gestured graciously. "Don't rush things on my account. You looked like you were really into it."

A trace of a smile. "Rosseau kept his body in excellent physical shape: he may have desired to transcend it, but it was the only vessel he had, so he took care of it. I'm actually rather grateful that he passed along such a well-tuned organic machine. I'll be with you in ninety seconds, give or take." 

The problem was that as he watched Kitt go back to it with characteristic intensity of focus, as he felt his own arousal still simmering beneath his skin, he couldn't stop himself from observing that what he was looking at couldn't have reminded him less of the female form. The face was handsome rather than beautiful, the haircut masculine, the pattern and development of muscles undeniably male… only the eyes, wide and startlingly clear in this angle of light, had a feminine quality to them, but even they were full of a brilliance that was had an undefinable not-quite-human aura about it. It was as if an angelic spirit had descended into the body of a mortal man — definitely a man, neither feminine nor celestial. If he kissed that mouth it would taste like no woman's he'd ever sampled. He wasn't sure how he knew. He just _did_. 

 _This has gotta stop,_ he told himself sternly. _It's not doing anybody any favours — least of all me!_ But he also knew that he'd might as well tell himself to stop obeying the law of gravity. All he could do was work through it, so he crossed to the clear space where a sparring mat had already been set up and unslung his gym bag, opening it to remove a bottle of water and a small towel, setting them down on one of the benches that bounded the combat area. He snuck a couple of swallows from the bottle to counteract his lack of saliva, briefly but fervently wishing that it was something stronger, and was performing some warm-up stretches when Kitt finished, put away the weights, and came to join him, scanning his outfit — a black muscle shirt, forest green sweatpants, comfortable sneakers — with what Michael dared to hope was an air of approval. 

"We'll start out with some basic strikes and blocks," Michael told him, starting to talk to cover the uncomfortable tension that steady gaze was setting in motion. Uncomfortable, but not unpleasant. Damn it! "Nothing too fancy. I wanna see if Alpert was right about your reflexes." 

"He was, I assure you." Kitt was watching him closely, his arms folded and his lips slightly curved in a way that was far too distracting. "I suspect I'll be able to impress you in spite of yourself." 

"Buddy, if you don't fall flat on your ass from having so many things to process at once, you can colour me absolutely amazed." 

There it was again, that bright laugh. "Then prepare to be astounded!" 

Michael smiled — oh, _definitely_ worth taking down at least three pegs — and finished up the last hamstring stretch, straightening to his full height and gesturing toward the mat. "Transferred computer programs first," he said graciously. 

"Why thank you, kind sir!" He sketched a mocking little bow and stepped into the combat space, moving with the catlike grace that Michael had noticed so conspicuously on Devon's private jet. Moving to face his former car, he was aware that the other people doing weights were taking notice and that at least two of them were stopping what they were doing to watch. How many people were aware of what Kitt was, anyway? This wasn't the moment to try to figure it out, because Rosseau's trim body had just fallen into a ready stance that suggested that on some level Kitt knew exactly what he was doing. 

It was the first hint that things weren't going to go exactly as Michael had planned. The second hint was delivered when he eyed Kitt up and down, then surged toward him without warning, intending to tap the AI's left shoulder with the knuckles of his right hand, and to teach a lesson about being prepared for an attack at any moment. Instead Kitt's right arm snapped up, blocking and deflecting the attempted blow as quick as a striking snake.  

Surprised, Michael fell back into ready stance. Kitt did the same — and that hint of a smile had just widened. Green eyes sparkled at him, full of amusement and challenge, a challenge that Michael wasn't slow to take him up on: lunge, strike, spin, sweep of his right ankle to take Kitt's legs out from under him. The AI responded as smartly as if they'd rehearsed the sequence a hundred times: dodge, block, leap to avoid the sweeping kick. Back into ready stance. When Michael started to circle to his right so did Rosseau's body, gliding over the mat like a small tiger.  

"Impressed yet?" Kitt purred.  

Grudgingly, Michael nodded. "Where the hell did you…? Rosseau? He had combat training?" 

"Not in the least. No, I learned from the best: You." A thin flash of white teeth. "Now do you believe that I might actually be —?" 

Michael charged, so fast that Kitt was overwhelmed by his greater mass: the AI tried to skip to one side, but his partner bulled straight into him, wrapping both arms around him and sending them both crashing to the mat. Wide eyes stared up at him, outraged, as Kitt writhed beneath him — but Michael got a solid grip on him and pinned him fast, staring him in the eyes until he froze, his breath coming faster with incipient panic. 

"Michael." A choked whisper; Michael could almost smell the adrenaline surging through his body. "Let go. Let me up!" 

"You think a real enemy combatant would say 'yes'?" 

Kitt stared at him, unable to speak. 

"And y'know," Michael continued, keenly aware of the warmth of skin through thin cloth, pressed torso to torso, "that I could break your nose with a forehead butt in this position, right? That'd put you in a world of hurt, make it real hard to breathe, and slow you right down." 

A shiver coursed through him. "Michael, please —" 

He wanted to shiver too, the kind of hot tremble that led to all kinds of further physical contact. Instead he ignored the ache in his groin, levered himself up off of Kitt, and got to his feet, holding out his right hand to help his partner up. "Reflexes aren't everything, pal. Neither is textbook knowledge of how to block and evade." Kitt reached up and clasped his hand, letting himself be half-pulled back onto his feet. "You've gotta learn how to react to the unexpected, and that's what's gonna —" 

The next thing he knew Kitt's free hand was at his throat, the lightest touch of the points of bladed fingers against his Adam's apple. 

"Trachea strike," Kitt said, his voice only slightly unsteady. "If you want to talk about difficulty breathing…" 

After a moment Michael nodded. "Good instincts. Always try to catch your opponent by surprise."  

The crooked smile was back. "Thank you. And I'll concede your point about lack of actual combat experience." 

"Bold of you to admit it." He was suddenly aware that they were still holding hands — and that five pairs of eyes were now watching them. He let go and took a step back, resisting the urge to rub the back of his neck. "That's what we have to drill into you — how to react no matter what the situation, and definitely _not_ to freeze like you just did. I could show you at least two ways out of the hold I had you in, including that forehead butt I mentioned." 

Kitt nodded, running one hand back over his tousled blond hair to neaten it again. "Understood. Shall we deal with that now?"  

Michael shook his head, smiling himself. "That's a whole other chapter of the textbook, buddy. Right now I wanna find out just how good your reflexes really are, and how much you picked up by watching me all those years." He dropped back to ready stance, and Kitt followed suit instantly. "Okay, here it comes again…" 

Bonnie had been right: he'd watched, learned, and remembered with better than human clarity, and he was able to translate that knowledge into the new body he wore with startling equivalency. But he was also completely unprepared for the experience of actually taking hostile physical contact, and for the chemicals that such conflict sent surging through his organic systems. Michael could see it all clearly, that contrast between superhuman intelligence and merely human frailty, and patiently, skilfully, he set about the long process of bringing the one to terms with the other. 


	7. Chapter 7

Three days later Michael was standing on a patio overlooking the mansion's extensive gardens, performing stretches in preparation for joining Kitt in a run along its landscaped paths, when a cheerful voice hailed him from the doorway leading inside: "Good morning, Michael!" 

"Good morning, Devon!" He was feeling pretty damn good himself — the prospect of being close to Kitt, of feeling that very fine body operating in tandem with his own again even if a yard or so of space lay between them, had put him in a merry mood. "How's it going?" 

"Quite well, thank you." The older man crossed the marble flagging to join him. "I hope I'm not interrupting…?" 

Michael finished stretching out his left leg and straightened to his full height. "Not at all — just warming up for a run. Kitt's already out there: I was a few minutes late and he doesn't like to wait." 

Devon chuckled. "Some things never change. How is he doing?" 

Michael nodded toward the walking path below. "See for yourself. He should be along any second now." And sure enough, three seconds later Kitt appeared from behind the ornamental brick wall, smoothly eating up the track at an easy lope. Devon observed his progress with obvious pleasure, and returned the AI's quick nod and wave. 

"Splendid! I'm glad to see he's maintaining the body he's been given. And how is he otherwise? Is he eating and sleeping well?" 

Watching Rosseau's body operate, Michael had to admit that it was poetry in motion. "He's got the appetite of a wolf but he never puts on an ounce of extra weight. And he's always got plenty of energy, so I'm guessing he's getting eight solid hours a night." 

Devon looked round in surprise. "You haven't asked him?" 

"He doesn't like to talk about it. I think he's touchy because he still views it as a weakness. But Bonnie has him submit a daily operating report and she hasn't mentioned any problems."  

Devon nodded, watching Kitt round the far curve and disappear again, deeper into the mansion's grounds. "I know you didn't want to leave him alone at night, but it was —" 

"Necessary, yeah." For everybody's peace of mind and Michael's own physical well-being, given how chronically short of sleep he'd been running after a full week of sitting at Kitt's bedside every night alert for any sign of nightmares. Mercifully the episodes of thrashing and crying out had tapered off by the time they'd left Billings, but — "I still worry about him." 

"Kitt is nothing if not resilient." 

"I know. I know, but…" He gestured in the direction Kitt had taken. "Look at him — he looks like a strong gust of wind would blow him over!" 

That earned him a keener glance. "Of course it's only natural that you're comparing him to what he used to be. Shall I tell you what I see?" 

Michael shrugged. "Be my guest." 

Devon's gaze returned to the place where Kitt had last been. "A sturdy young man in superb physical condition — strong, quick reflexes, excellent endurance — with steely determination, a keen intellect, and an iron-clad dedication to ensuring your safety. And of course there's the fact that he possesses information which might prove vital to solving this case. In my opinion you couldn't ask for a better companion in your search for Rosseau —" 

"— except for the fact that he's not a trained field operative," Michael stated flatly. 

"He was programmed to be exactly that." Devon turned his attention to Michael's face again, frowning. "Why, is he not doing well in the combat course you've set up for him?" 

He bit back a sigh. "No, he's doing better than I could have imagined." 

"And as pertains to firearms?" 

"I'm taking him for his first session this morning. He's really looking forward to it." 

"Then I fail to see what the problem is." 

"Devon…" He glanced away briefly, suppressing the pain of memory, then met his superior's gaze squarely. "I've failed him in the past. I overmatched him against Goliath. I let Adrianne Margeau steal his body. I couldn't save him from that acid pit, even though he was begging me to help him. We've always managed to put him back together again, but this time… if he dies out there, Bonnie won't be able to bring him back. And I don't know if I could live with that." 

Devon nodded sympathetically, but his tone was stern. "And if you were killed in the field because he wasn't with you, do you really think he'd survive his grief and guilt?" 

"No." He looked out over the gardens again, so beautiful in the early morning light even in their winter's mourning, and silently cursed the Catch 22 they'd all been saddled with. The thought of Kitt surviving his partner's death, so torn apart with remorse that he'd lost all will to live, was too painful to contemplate for more than a couple of seconds.  "Rosseau's got a lot to answer for. Any news on that front?" 

"I've put the eighteen digit number that Kitt first mentioned in the ambulance out to my law enforcement and military contacts, now that he's recalled it in its entirety. I'm hoping to hear something by tomorrow morning." 

"I hope so too, because it's the only solid clue we've got right now." 

"And, I've got Research looking into Rosseau's personal contacts. They're not having much luck in terms of his espionage activities, but it seems that he carried on regular correspondence with a Transhumanist group operating out of the University of California, Los Angeles." 

Michael, who'd been gazing pensively over the gardens, looked back at him in surprise. "A what?" 

"Transhumanism. It's a philosophy which seeks to transcend the frailty and mortality of the human body through the application of technology." 

That set up an unpleasant echo in Michael's mind, recalling Kitt's pained account of his encounter with the man who'd stolen his body and taken possession of it. "And Rosseau was one of them?" 

"It appears that way. We'll know more after we've gotten in touch with some of the people he was corresponding with." 

"That could explain a lot." The cold prickle at the base of his spine had spread all the way up his back. "It could also mean that a lot more people are involved in this than we'd originally thought." 

Devon nodded grimly. "But at least we'll be able to find out some of their names and addresses." 

Michael was nodding too, his mind racing. "Let me know as soon as you've got some solid contact information. I'll tell Kitt to be ready to roll." 

"I'm sure he'll be pleased to hear it." 

"Yeah." He knew he sounded preoccupied, but he also felt a thrill of exultation, the excitement of picking up the first trace of solid scent in a chase where the stakes were high. "Thanks, Devon."  

"Enjoy your run," Devon smiled, and Michael set off down the steps to the garden path to warm up with a slow jog, ready to fall into step with Kitt when the AI reappeared on his next lap. 

****************************** 

The firing range was deserted — Michael had made sure of that. The last thing Kitt needed right now was an audience, which might either worsen his anxiety or inflate his ego. 

At this moment Kitt looked more eager than anything else, his green eyes bright with interest when Michael drew his gun from its shoulder holster, pointing it down range as he displayed it. "This is a Glock 17 9mm pistol. It holds seventeen rounds in —" 

"Michael, please!" Kitt looked down his elegant nose at the weapon in question. "As you should know, I'm familiar with the specifications of all handguns currently in common circulation — and of all the obscure models as well, I might add." 

He flipped the gun in his hand and held it out to the AI, eyebrows on the rise. "All right, let's see you take it for a spin." 

Kitt took the firearm, ejected the magazine, inspected both it and the muzzle, rechambered the magazine again, then turned the gun on its horizontal axis to examine it critically (keeping the muzzle, Michael noted, always properly pointed down range, and his finger off the trigger). "It appears to be in working order. Which target did you want me to hit?" 

He had balls the size of church bells, Michael had to give him that much. "Let's start with the one at five yards." 

Kitt snorted audibly, as if scorning the suggestion out of hand — but he walked over to the indicated lane, stepped into textbook firing position, levelled the gun in both hands, and fired three times in rapid succession: two in the chest bullseye less than a half inch apart, and one right between what would have been a real person's eyes. 

Kitt stared at the holes in the target as if momentarily surprised that they had shown up… and then at the gun in his hands… and then a smile slowly spread across his face, gloating and amazingly sensual. "Oh, Michael… I _like_ it!" 

"Yeah," Michael couldn't help grinning in response as his own pulse quickened, "I can see that." But looking at the target again and really absorbing the location of the shots, he suddenly felt more sober. "But… just as an exercise, right? You wouldn't actually shoot a human being that way." 

Kitt glanced at him sidelong, his own smile fading to grimness. "If your life was at stake, you're darned right I would." He nodded back toward the target. "In all other circumstances, assuming I had no choice but to draw and fire, I'd incapacitate the target with a shoulder or a thigh shot." 

Michael found his throat suddenly dry again. Kitt had that effect on him a lot lately. "And I bet you'd hit them, too." 

There was that smug curve of his lips again. "Undoubtedly." 

"Kitt… nobody knows how they'll react to being under gunfire until it actually happens to them." 

"Then we'll simply have to arrange a simulation in which I'm tested under those conditions." He lowered the gun to a safe hold and turned a frown on his taller companion. "Frankly, I'm still rather ashamed of all the times I've frozen during combat training. I can't afford to do that out in the field — not when it could mean the difference between life and death. _Your_ life and death." 

No mention of his own, and it was an omission that Michael did not miss. "Tell you what: We'll come back here when the field agent training class holds its regular session. The best thing we can do is get you used to the sound of gunfire —" 

"I know what gunfire sounds like!" 

"— maybe, but now you've got a whole new brain, and it might not like all the bang-bang." He nodded to the next aisle. "Let's walk you through the rest of the targets…" 

Kitt hit everything he aimed at, right down to the farthest end of the thirty yard range. He was exacting in his movements and meticulous in his gun etiquette. And he clearly enjoyed what he was doing: Michael had to wonder why. Was it because he was in control of a machine again, even a small one that fired bullets? Or was it simply that he was savouring the challenge and the precision of the exercise? Whatever the case might be, he was damned good at it and Michael felt sincerely sorry for any poor bastard who wound up in his partner's sights… and sincerely hoped that whoever they were, they hadn't done anything that would lead Kitt to think that they were threatening Michael Knight.  

****************************** 

"He said _what?_ " Bonnie asked several hours later, astonishment writ large on her face. 

Michael, leaning with folded arms against a side wall of the robotics lab in an area where they could talk undisturbed, nodded grimly. "Loud and clear. But I'm not sold on the idea that he could kill anybody. Don't get me wrong: I don't doubt for a second that he'd do anything to prevent me from being harmed. But the difference between wanting to eliminate a threat and pulling the trigger on a living human being is astronomical." 

Bonnie nodded, looking pensive. "It could just be his amygdala talking — the primitive primate drive to protect what it perceives as members of its core tribe. He's not used to dealing with that kind of input." 

He fixed her with an I-mean-business look. "Do _you_ think he could do it? You know more about how his mind is designed than anyone on the planet." 

The engineer drew in a measured breath, then exhaled it just as slowly. "I think you're more important to him than anybody else in the world, and that he'd go to any lengths to ensure your safety. Previously his Asimov protocols kept him in check, but if what you're telling me is accurate the brain he's currently operating in might be overriding them or eroding them." 

"In other words…?" 

She shook her head once, looking perturbed. "I honestly can't say. I suggest you never put him in a position where we'll have to find out." 

He held up his hands in a conciliatory gesture. "No argument from me." Remembering the coldly calculating expression on Kitt's face as he sent unerring bullets into representations of human bodies, he felt another chill — and a surge of guilty but undeniable warmth, at the thought that he was still loved with such devotion that his partner would fly in the face of a lifetime of ethical imperatives for his sake. It was completely wrong, and he had to figure out what was really going on and counteract it fast…  

… but the pleasure lingered, heretical and undeniable. He couldn't afford to give in to it. Neither could he manage to push it entirely away. 

[TO BE CONTINUED]


	8. Chapter 8

Night came again, and his lonely bed, and with it the torment of unexpected and unwelcome memory. Michael tossed and turned and stared at the ceiling for almost two hours before finally giving up, pulling on some clothes, and leaving the mansion for the cold embrace of the midwinter night beyond. The click and crunch of his booted footfalls were his only companions as he walked the path that he and Kitt had jogged that very morning, and the solitude suited his gloomy frame of mind perfectly. 

Two gunshots. A white-clad body in his arms, sinking to the ground at his feet. Final words of love, whispered in broken cadences. Death claiming his beloved while he gazed helplessly, powerless to intervene. 

Stevie Mason was haunting him yet again, and he knew not why. The nights when he relived her murder were the worst, but he hadn't suffered an episode in nearly four and a half months. Most of the time he managed to put aside the fact that for a shining span of less than a minute he'd been married to the woman he'd loved — and that an assassin's bullets, meant for him, had cut her life short like a flower callously harvested and crushed underfoot. Most of the time he buried the agony deep, and the passage of fourteen months had done a great deal to ease the horrible ache, but when it resurfaced it brought the torments of Hell itself with it. 

Remembering her beautiful laughing vitality, as sweet and as silken as a rose, was an exercise in masochistic futility. She was dead and gone, buried in the earth's embrace, never to come back. He'd seized his one chance for a life beyond the Foundation, only to have it brutally torn away from him… 

… and through it all, KITT had been there. Even after Michael had pushed him away he'd returned because he had known he was needed, and Michael would never forget how kind and gracious he'd been to the woman who was taking his imprinted driver away from him. The last days of Stevie's life had really belonged to the three of them, and when, after his wife's death, Michael had declared that he was going after her killers alone, "alone" had included KITT because KITT was so unquestionably a part of him. Armour to shield him, speed to carry him, strength to bear him up… immense power and peerless knowledge, all at his fingertips. His enduring home, welcoming him back to its solace after the rest of the world had stripped his soul bare. 

A gust of cold wind penetrated the line of trees beside the garden path and pierced his leather jacket. He hunched himself against it and strode on, keenly aware of how exposed he was — unshielded, uncared for… 

… truly alone, for the first time in four and a half years. 

Even then, he'd recognized what was going on. Or at least he'd known enough that telling KITT goodbye had been one of the hardest conversations of his life, even if he hadn't fully grasped what he was abandoning. But after the dust had settled and he'd been left to face the years ahead bereft of Stevie's laughter and love…  

KITT had still been there, and in his immortal grace Michael had been able to find at least some measure of peace. KITT would accept him, tears and rage and all. KITT would never let him fall. KITT would always be his, no matter what. It wasn't a human love, but it had provided a security that he'd desperately needed at the time. During long nights on the endless road he'd curled himself up in its unbeating heart and let the rest of the world slip away, the soft subliminal song of the car's systems lulling him into a sleep where, if he was lucky, the nightmares of his beloved wife's murder wouldn't follow. 

And when they did, a compassionate voice had always been there to guide him back to safety. KITT wasn't human, he didn't truly understand grief, but by God he tried — and that had brought Michael closer to him than ever.  

Not a human love, no. But definitely love. And if he hadn't cried when KITT had died five times in the three and a half years of their partnership to date, that had primarily been because he'd always had faith that Bonnie or April would be able to perform the miracle of resurrection.  

He still had nightmares, too, about the acid pit, and KITT's cries as he sank. He still relived the agony of knowing that his best friend was dying, and that after all the times that KITT had saved his life there was nothing he could do to save KITT's in return. That was its own species of grief and guilt, but one that he'd learned to live with because… well, KITT was a fellow soldier, and in war people got hurt and people died. Stevie's death had shattered him so profoundly because she was a person of peace, a non-combatant, part of a world in which gentle women married their true loves and lived happily ever after. Her death had been an obscenity and a horrific injustice. KITT, on the other hand, was a creature of battle, and Michael was inured to the wounds that he suffered in the line of duty because they, too, were part of the paradigm that car and driver operated within. 

The garden was a tapestry of shadows tonight: no moon, only the glitter of a million stars overhead. Through the trees he could catch intermittent glimpses of the lights of the mansion as he walked, a promise of warmth and comfort that his restless soul would not let him seek. 

Five times. Five times KITT had been destroyed, and five times his partner had watched from the sidelines with his heart in his throat, praying to whatever Gods would hear his unspoken plea that the priestesses and their magic would not fail. Five times KITT had come back to him. And each time had brought greater joy than the last. 

 _Love_. Its obvious form, the form that society had recognized and celebrated for millennia, had been given to him and then ripped away, leaving him broken and bleeding. But love had never completely abandoned him. A more subtle manifestation, completely unknown at any previous point in human history, had been on an intercept course with him for nearly four years — and when it had finally hit him at terminal velocity, he'd fallen head over heels in an instant. He had adored Stevie, had cherished her softness and her femininity and her innocence because they were so different from his own hard masculine professionalism, but in a fundamental sense he had pegged her as childlike, unworldly and in need of his protection. KITT, cool and calculating and precise, a fellow warrior and an expert field operative, was her opposite in nearly every way quite apart from being crafted of steel and glass and circuitry… but even in his expertise he maintained an innocence of his own, and in his crystalline depths burned a fierce and sacred blaze, an angelic radiance that Michael could even now barely gaze upon because it was too pure and too bright. 

Even these past six months, when he reached out to touch that fire on a regular basis and felt the awe of its indelible passion flowing through his veins. Even lately, when it drew him into its alien core and took his mind places their bodies could never go… 

Until now. Now they shared a common substance, two beating hearts, two gazes capable of communicating without any words whatsoever… 

… and now… they still couldn't touch. The bitterness of that realization was even more chilling than the winter's night.  

But deep within him the fire still shimmered, hissing like a bed of unquenchable embers. It refused to die. He was starting to suspect that it never would, and that this torment would be his forever. 

He had tasted both ends of the spectrum of desire. What he'd felt for Stevie had been, to a degree, soft, because she was herself so tender: warmly loving, deeply devoted but profoundly gentle. For KITT, on the other hand — for KITT he burned with a fierce intensity that sometimes terrified him, a hit as potent as Super Pursuit Mode acceleration with a turbo boost chaser. The AI had been designed to become his perfect companion over time, to bond with him on every level possible, and when the capacitive structural feedback field had entered the picture it had simply provided another channel through which to make a connection. Was it really so surprising that given the opportunity, Michael had explored it and KITT had moved decisively to cement the new aspect of their bond? 

Not surprising at all. Logical, even. He had thought that after Stevie's death he would never love again, not realizing that the seed was already coiled tightly in his heart, just waiting for the right trigger to make it explode in all directions, unfurling a million elegant petals of flawless ebony. He had thought he'd never love again because although it was right in front of him, it wore a shape that no songwriter had ever celebrated and no poet had ever enshrined in verse.  

_She walks in beauty, like the night_  
 _Of cloudless climes and starry skies,_  
 _And all that's best of dark and bright_  
 _Meet in her aspect and her eyes;_  
 _Thus mellow'd to that tender light_  
 _Which Heaven to gaudy day denies…_  

Okay. Maybe one poet.  

He only realized that his feet had led him off Kitt's running track when he reached the terminus of the path and found himself overlooking a cold expanse of still water. For a long moment he paused, hands buried in his jacket pockets, staring out over the icy reflection of the winter sky. End of the line, in every sense of the word. Stevie was dead, KITT's body was gone, and in just as profound a sense his lover's soul was equally lost to him, for all that its beauty shone at him from out of a human face. _Because_ it shone behind a human face: he couldn't risk unbalancing his partner's equilibrium, and besides, he'd seen absolutely zero evidence that Kitt felt anything toward him other than friendship, gratitude, and the occasional episode of annoyance. Hell, for all he knew Kitt and Bonnie might already be — 

It was a totally insane thought, but it hit him like a truck. He closed his eyes tight and trembled in the darkness as a wave of fury and anguish surged through him, hot enough to light up the night like a flare. A growl burst from his throat before he could stop himself: "No! He's _mine_ − you can't have —!" 

Just as quickly as the savage emotion had flared, it died, leaving him grey and shaken, empty and dear God, so weary that he could barely stay on his feet. But the fire was not dead. It wasn't even sleeping. Its heart glowed as red as the forge and as black as the fathomless sky above, and deep within its mystery he could hear the voice of his lost lover singing to him, entwining his willing body and mind and soul with silken chains of words to bind him fast, promising him desire and devotion forever. 

The voice of the past. He couldn't listen to it anymore. He turned back toward his bed and the remainder of a restless night, already knowing that his attempts to silence the persistence of memory were doomed to fail. 


	9. Chapter 9

"Michael?"  

The query was pointed, bringing Michael back to himself with a little start: he'd been jogging mindlessly, cooling down after three faster laps around the gardens. Just letting Kitt's voice flow over him, losing himself in its familiar rhythms as he'd used to when he'd ridden in the car, while he thought about their latest case. He'd dragged himself out here about forty minutes earlier, exhausted after a night of chasing sleep and still weighed down with ache of memories, but then his best friend had turned to face him and smiled — and the pain of the past had given way to present satisfaction. Kitt was still here, they were still partners, and there was a helluva lot to be said for that state of affairs. It helped that he was sufficiently tired that his weariness muted the slow burn of sexual desire to a dull roar. 

"I don't believe you've heard a single word I've said for the past two minutes," Kitt accused, and Michael had to concede the point. 

"Sorry, pal. I was just —"

"— thinking about the case. Yes, I recognize that look. And have you come up with any new conclusions?" 

Michael sighed, and before he could check his watch Kitt stepped down the pace again, slowing them to a brisk walk. It must be awfully handy to carry an unerring clock inside your head. "Not a damned thing. Rosseau might as well have vanished from the face of the earth for all the evidence we've been able to turn up." 

"Has it occurred to you that he may well have done exactly that?" In response to Michael's puzzled glance he smiled without much humour. "Think about it: my robotic body needs neither food nor temperature-controlled shelter, and its power cells could last for thirty-two years in standby mode. He may well have gone to ground and powered down his CPU, to wait out the initial search." 

Michael frowned, not liking the idea one bit. "Are you saying he could be parked somewhere out of sight?" 

"That's exactly what I'm saying. If I knew that I was being looked for and had no obligations to anyone, it's certainly a course of action I would seriously consider. His current vessel is, for all intents and purposes, immortal — three decades of inactivity would do it no harm whatsoever, although he'd need to have a refuge to go to at the end of that period to recharge and refuel. But if he has human allies, they could easily go underground as well and then prepare for his re-emergence in the year two thousand and seventeen." 

"That's…" 

"A disquieting prospect? Extremely. But certainly a possible one, perhaps even a likely one." 

"So we'd all be old and grey when he popped out of hiding, not a year older." 

"For all intents and purposes, no." 

"Not a happy thought, buddy." 

"I didn't bring it up to put you in a good humour," Kitt pointed out waspishly. "And we have to consider all the possibilities." 

"Have you mentioned this to Devon yet?" 

"Yes, when we had dinner together last night. He didn't take it much better than you are." 

Michael gazed up into the cloudless cold sky for a few yards, drawing a deep breath. "I don't blame him, because it means this could drag on for years after he's in his grave." 

"That's what he said, practically verbatim. It's not a problem he wants to pass on to the next director of FLAG, that's for certain." 

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but it would also mean that your chances of being re-uploaded into the car would be practically zero, right?" 

"Most likely, yes. The longer I function inside this brain, the more I'll 'go native', for lack of a better term. After thirty years of living as a human it might be extremely difficult to make the re-adjustment successfully." 

Michael turned a considering gaze on the neat figure power walking at his side. "How _does_ it feel, anyway? I mean — is it getting easier?" 

"No," Kitt said flatly, "and I take that as an extremely encouraging sign." 

He recognized that tone: _This conversation is over._ They finished the rest of the course in silence, but Michael fancied that the lull was not a particularly uncomfortable one. 

****************************** 

Back in the gym for combat training, and Michael was getting the shit kicked out of him — again. It wasn't for lack of trying: he was doing his best to come to grips with his opponent and get the upper hand, but Kitt apparently _had_ absorbed every trick in his book, because whenever he moved in to attack or to grapple he found the tables neatly turned — and himself flat on his back, staring up at the smug little smirk he was starting to become resigned to. 

The jog had woken him up enough that he had to consciously counteract the physical effects of Kitt's proximity. After four days of hand to hand combat training you'd think he would have gotten to the point where grappling with James Rosseau's body didn't set him off, that he'd be able to ignore the compact power of that body's muscles and the softness of its skin and the scent of — 

No. _Kitt's_ body. If he'd been able to think of that slender blond form as the body of a stranger he wouldn't be having this problem. But he had no illusions about who was currently inhabiting it: someone he still desperately wanted, in every way he could possibly have them. And although he was able to put aside the sexual attraction enough to keep his mind on the task at hand, that didn't mean that the attraction had gone away. 

Even when he hit Kitt hard enough to leave bruises — definitely hard enough to hurt. Even when Kitt twisted with that eery grace and sent Michael crashing to the mat with some bruises of his own. In fact, if anything his partner's mastery of his own body and his bravery in working through the shock and pain of each blow only made Michael admire him more, and that certainly wasn't calculated to lessen the desire to get even closer.  

But at least that desire didn't blind him to the facts of the matter, and so on the early afternoon of this fourth day of training, when Kitt had put him on his back for the sixth time in three minutes, he looked up at his partner and half-grinned, half-grimaced. "Kitt?" 

Kitt, who had stepped back into position to throw Michael again as soon as he got back up, cocked his head. "Yes, Michael?" 

"You're ready."  

A more dubious tilt of his head. "Are you sure? You told Devon you'd have to train me for a full —" 

"Yeah, well…" He sat up and winced. "I didn't count on you picking things up this fast. Trust me — you'd put Sugar Ray on the ropes in ten seconds flat." He held out his hand, open-palmed, and after a moment Kitt stepped forward to clasp it and pull him to his feet with easy strength. "Come on, let's go get a drink — something with caffeine in it." 

As they passed the bench at the edge of the mat Kitt darted sideways just enough to grab his own water bottle before falling back into step at his former driver's side. "I take it you didn't sleep well last night." 

Michael stifled a yawn as they headed towards the double doors leading to the change rooms, and the vending machine set up in the hallway between those two points. "Guess that's pretty obvious, huh?" 

Kitt looked at him sidelong with a contemplative expression. "I'm very sorry to hear it." He moved one quick step ahead, to push the door open for his partner. "Is there anything I can do?" 

Shaking his head, Michael smiled and clapped the AI lightly between the shoulderblades with his open hand. "No, not really — but thanks for asking. I'll feel better after I have a can of Coke under my belt." 

Kitt wrinkled his pointed nose. "I still fail to see the attraction of drinks with a high sugar content and no other nutritive value whatsoever." 

"Maybe because you put away two big cups of sweet coffee first thing every morning," Michael jibed, but with no real malice behind it. 

"If I didn't, I'd be good for nothing before noon! Along with the rest of this body's fallibilities I also inherited Rosseau's apparent addiction to caffeine." 

He held up one hand in warning as they came to a stop in front of the vending machine. "Please, tell me you're not planning to quit cold turkey. Your snits can strip the paint off walls as it is — I'd hate to see how you'd go through caffeine withdrawal." 

"Hardly," Kitt sniffed, while Michael made a selection and punched it in. "I can't afford the downtime, thank you very much." 

"Well," he grinned, scooping the can out of the dispenser and popping its tab as he led the way to a wooden bench situated a little further down the hall, "I'm real glad to hear it." 

Kitt made no response, unless you counted looking a bit more supercilious. He took his seat with elegant poise on Michael's right when the born human slumped down onto the bench, watching his partner intently while he put away three quick swallows of carbonated beverage and sighed contentedly. He stared so long, in fact, that Michael lowered the can and regarded him in turn with an amused cant of his eyebrows.  

"Well?" he asked. 

Kitt's own eyebrows lowered sharply. "Well, what?" 

"I know _that_ look, pal. Something's on your mind." 

"Actually, it's what's on your mind that I'm concerned about." He sounded so critical that for an instant Michael felt as spasm of dread: _Oh God, he knows, and I'm about to get the lecture to end all lectures on how he doesn't want me looking at him 'that way' and —_ "You didn't quite approve of my actions on the firing range yesterday, did you?" 

Well, that was a relief. Still not a conversation he was looking forward to having, but a damned sight better than the alternative. He sighed again, straightened up enough to lean down and put the Coke can on the floor between his feet, and turned both his attention and his torso fully in Kitt's direction. "Kitt, you hit every target you aimed at. That's not the problem. The problem is that you seemed to get a real kick out of it — and especially out of the prospect of putting a bullet between someone's eyes." 

"I did no such thing," Kitt protested, but had the good sense to stop when Michael ducked his chin and gave him an _Oh_ ** _please_** look par excellence.  

"Kitt… you always were a lousy liar. I know what I saw." 

"Do you really?" He was looking distinctly sulky. "Well, I suspect I have a better idea of what I was actually feeling than —" 

"That's the problem — you're _feeling_ now. I mean, you always did —" 

"Now you're just being insulting!" Amazingly, pouting only made him even sexier.  

"— but not like this." He gazed into those gorgeous green eyes, daring Kitt to interrupt him, but the AI remained silent… for the moment. Michael had no doubt that he was gathering his arguments for a catastrophic counter-attack. "Bonnie thinks it's the brain you're currently stuck in, overriding your original programming. I've gotta admit, you completely rocked that Glock — any police force in the country would sign you up in two seconds flat based on your accuracy. But I'm not convinced you're doing it for the right reasons." 

"I see," Kitt said after a couple of seconds. "And what, exactly, do you consider to be 'the right reasons'?" 

"How about, not shooting someone dead because they threatened your partner?" 

Kitt's resentful expression loosened visibly. "Michael," he said gently, "is that really what you think is happening here?" 

Michael studied that handsome face carefully, not letting himself be drawn in by the way it made him feel. "I'm not sure what's happening with you. You really got off on firing that gun. Why? What's it doing to you? Before I let you out there with a loaded weapon, that's something I've gotta know." 

Kitt regarded him for a long moment, seeming to gaze inward as much as at his partner… and then he looked away, his mouth a terse line. "It really boils down to one thing…" 

"Yeah?" He resisted the urge to lean forward and take Kitt's hand in his own. "And what's that?" 

"Power, Michael." He said it calmly, as if he were reporting on prevailing weather conditions. "All of mine has been callously stolen from me. Oh, certainly I've retained the ability to calculate at lightning speed, and as you can attest yourself I'm capable of operating this body with a fair degree of precision — but my speed, my indestructibility, my telecommunications and electronic abilities… all the traits that made me valuable to you in the field are gone." His gaze shifted back to Michael's face, cool and direct. "I hope you don't think that I want to accompany you on the search for James Rosseau out of misplaced pride. Nothing could be further from the truth. I'm doing it because I have no other choice — because my programming won't let me abandon you if there's any chance, however small, that I might be able to help you." 

The tone of voice didn't fool him: he knew the fire that burned within this particular obelisk, and he could see the glow of it behind the measured words. "Yeah, well… your programming doesn't include putting bullets between people's eyes, either." 

Kitt blinked, as if surprised. "Certainly not. But a gun levels the playing field somewhat. It's the only effective tool I have left when it comes to protecting you." 

"And, it gives you back some of the power you've lost," Micheal not-quite-asked. He already knew the answer. 

A restrained nod. "Yes. There is that." 

He did reach out this time, to curve the fingers of his left hand under the AI's right. "Kitt, how many times in all the years we've worked together have you seen me use a gun on a case?" 

A hint of a frown. "Only once. It's against Foundation policy." 

"That's not really why. Guns don't solve the problem of violence — they just make violence easier and more likely. I saw it a thousand times in Vietnam, and over and over again when I worked the streets as a cop." 

"Unfortunately I don't have many other tools that I can turn to at the moment." 

He smiled winningly. "C'mon, Kitt, are you actually telling me that that amazing mind of yours has been put totally out of commission?" 

At last, a flash of that inner fire. "That's easy for you to say! You're —" 

"— in exactly the same position you are." 

"Wrong," Kitt snapped. "It's not your duty — your entire purpose in existing — to protect me during missions. On the other hand, it most certainly _is_ my duty to protect _you_ , and —" 

"And what if somebody threatens me, huh?" He held his partner's gaze, tightening his grip on those slender fingers. "What if they have a gun to my head, and you judge that it's me or them? When we got you back into your proper brain, you'd never forgive yourself. I know you, Kitt. You're no killer." 

"I didn't have to be," Kitt countered. "But you're quite right: for you, I'd make an exception. And I'd be perfectly willing to accept any consequences of my actions." 

He let some of the dread he felt at that prospect show on his face and in his voice. "Even if it wound up tearing you apart?" 

"Nothing is more important than your survival," Kitt stated bluntly. 

Of course. It could be no other way, and in spite of the circumstances it was no small comfort to realize that he was loved, still, to an extent that negated every other consideration. Michael shook his head decisively. "I can't let that happen. I couldn't let you save my life at the expense of your own. I'm sorry, Kitt, but there's no way in hell you're packing heat. I'm going to recommend to Devon that —" 

At that moment a young man recently out of his teens came jogging round the corner of the hallway, an intern by the name of Fawkler. "Mister Knight?" His glance took in Kitt as well. "I'm sorry to interrupt, but Mister Miles wants to see you both in his office, right away!" 

Michael glanced round in surprise, then at himself and at Kitt — both clad in sweatpants, runners, and sweaty t-shirts. " _Right_ now?" 

Fawkler nodded. "Yes, sir."  

"No rest for the wicked," Kitt said sardonically, sliding his hand from Michael's and rising from his seat while Michael hastily downed what was left of his can of Coke. "We'll continue this discussion later, Michael. You can count on that." 

"Damned right we will," Michael muttered, tossing the empty can into the garbage container between the bench and the vending machine and following the intern back into the gym, with Kitt not far behind. 


	10. Chapter 10

Michael often felt a little out of place in Devon's office: too big, too loud, too uncoordinated, like a bull in a china shop full of elegant antiques and exquisite furniture. Now, sweaty and dishevelled as he was, he felt downright grimy — and he had no idea how Kitt, who wasn't any cleaner, managed to look so fastidious and downright _in_ place. He did note, however, that the AI didn't seem any more inclined to sit on one of the chairs than he did himself. 

"Ah, Michael, Kitt!" Devon beamed at them from behind his desk as they entered and came to stand side by side in front of him. "I've got excellent news. We've made contact with one of James Rosseau's colleagues in the Transhumanist movement, a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles." 

Michael glanced at Kitt, then turned a wide smile on their boss. "Great! What's his name?" 

"LT-2117." 

Michael blinked, unable to process what he'd just heard. "A computer? He was corresponding with a _computer?_ " 

"If so," Kitt piped up indignantly, "why didn't anybody tell me that another AI was —" 

"No, no," Devon interjected with a wave of his hand, "nothing of the sort. The man in question legally changed his name back in the nineteen sixties to reflect his Transhumanist beliefs. He's as mortal as you or I, Michael, in his early fifties and a recognized leader in the movement — and he's agreed to talk to you about James Rosseau." 

"When?" 

"Tomorrow afternoon at three p.m. Don't worry — you can borrow my Bentley for the time being." 

"That's marvellous news!" Kitt's thin smile quickly gave way to what Michael had come to think of as his 'calculating' expression. "If we leave at one fifteen, we should be there in plenty of —" 

Surprised, he turned to stare. "Whoa, hold on a second! Who said you were coming with me?" 

"I did," Kitt stated flatly. "Just now." 

"Kitt, that's too big a —" 

"Have you forgotten than new information has the potential to open up currently locked segments of Rosseau's memory?" Kitt insisted, gazing back at him with one eyebrow cooly on the rise. "Why, just seeing Mister… this man's face might lead to a flood of new and necessary data!" 

"Kitt is quite right," Devon agreed, and Michael turned a pained glance in his direction. 

"Devon — I thought you were on my side!" The look that Devon and Kitt exchanged, and the shared chuckle that followed, did not improve his temper. "Speaking of which, did the permits to carry concealed weapons come through yet?" 

The older man nodded. "Just this morning. I'll have Requisitions send them —" 

"Don't bother — not for Kitt, anyway." The AI opened his mouth, a thundercloud gathering on his brow, but Michael talked right over him: "I have serious doubts concerning his psychological ability to handle a gun in the field. Until we get that sorted out —" 

"We can get it sorted out right now," Kitt hissed, turning to face his partner squarely, fists clenching at his sides.  

"You're right — we can." He turned to face Kitt in turn, aware that Devon was watching with great interest. "You don't have any experience handling a gun under fire, and considering that human lives might be at stake —" 

"The only human life that matters is yours!" Kitt said savagely.  

Behind the desk, Michael heard Devon draw a small sharp breath. Still gazing into Kitt's unblinking eyes, he spoke quietly but firmly: "Listen to yourself, Kitt. Do you really hear what you just said?" 

"I —" His eyes, which had been narrowed in fury and scanning Michael's face in quick darts, widened and grew still.  

Michael let the silence spin out for three full seconds. He was just about to open his mouth to speak when Kitt dropped his gaze and lowered his head, grinding out harsh words between clenched teeth: "I am programmed… to protect and preserve human life. All human life."  

"Yes." He nodded, aware that he was treading on very thin ice. "Yes, you are. Nobody's been able to break that, ever." 

Kitt nodded as if the muscles in his neck had turned to frozen steel. "But…" He looked up at Michael again and there was a terrible lost quality in his gaze, an unspoken plea that struck the born human to the heart. "Maybe… some lives are worth more than others. To me. And your life… more than any." 

Something inside Michael broke with a wordless cry. He reached out and stepped forward, meeting Kitt halfway, drawing the smaller man into his arms and holding tight "I know, buddy," he murmured through the tightness in his throat and the scent of Kitt's hair and skin, "I know. But that's the humanity talking. It isn't you." 

"Michael…" He turned his face away from Devon's compassionate gaze and sobbed against his friend's chest, starting to shake as his arms tightened around Michael's waist. "The thought of you being damaged… of you _dying_ …!" 

Michael nodded, then rested his chin on top of Kitt's bowed head and turned his attention briefly to Devon. The older man nodded in turn and rose from his seat, coming around the desk as Michael continued gently: "I know that too. But it can't be helped. And I know _you_ , Kitt — you're strong, a lot stronger than whatever messages Rosseau's brain is throwing in your face." 

"Yes," Devon affirmed, stopping behind Kitt and laying a steadying hand on his right shoulder. "I've never doubted that for a second. Most people would have lain down and given up when confronted with the challenges you've been forced to face. We believe in you, Kitt. We always have." 

The AI shook his head and quivered miserably, sniffling before hazarding a reply: "But… I can't… I have no…" 

"No molecular bonded shell?" Michael finished for him. "No Super Pursuit Mode? No turbo boost?" He took Kitt's upper arms in both hands and stepped back enough to look him in the face again, steeling himself against the sight of tears in those remarkable eyes. "I've told you before, that was all icing on the cake." He offered his most winning smile. "As long as I have _you_ , that's all that matters — and that's all I need." 

"I…" A brief trembling smile, then he dropped his gaze again, manifestly ashamed. "I'm sorry, Michael. I guess this body is affecting me after —" 

"Don't." He gave Kitt an affectionate little shake. "Don't ever apologize for something that's not your fault." Meeting Devon's gaze over Kitt's slumped shoulder, he went on: "But under the circumstances it's better that we keep you clear of firearms — just to be on the safe side." 

"It's a necessary precaution, Kitt," Devon said reasonably, squeezing Kitt's shoulder in reassurance. "You're still not used to this operating environment, and Rosseau's nervous system could issue a command before your mind could countermand it. That certainly isn't a reflection on you personally." 

"I… of course, Michael. You're right. I'm sorry I've been so difficult." And he looked up at his former driver again, but behind his measured words a quality of misery lingered that Michael didn't like one bit.  

****************************** 

It was still there early that evening, when Michael joined Kitt in Kitt's rooms for dinner. Even more tellingly, the AI only picked at his food, a state of affairs that Michael had never encountered before. 

At last, after watching Kitt chase a medallion of beef around his plate for nearly ten minutes, Michael put down his own fork and looked Kitt directly in the eyes — or tried to, since Kitt was staring down at his dinner. "Come on, Kitt — what's wrong?" 

"I don't know what you mean." 

He nodded at the plate. "Normally you'd be eating dessert by now, and you haven't even finished your veggies. Loss of appetite is pretty common in humans with something heavy on their mind." 

Kitt poked at the steak one more time, sighed in a long slow exhalation, and put down his own fork. "I want to apologize for my appalling loss of control this afternoon." 

"It's okay, pal," Michael assured him, reaching for his water glass and taking a sip. "After all, you're only human. It happens to the best of us." 

"That's the problem." His gaze was still downcast. "I'm no longer the best, in any sense of the term — and in the few areas where I currently excel, I'm effectively forbidden to use those skill sets. Frankly, I'm useless." 

"Never." He infused the word with such conviction that Kitt looked up, seemingly surprised. "We've been over this again and again, but I'm gonna say it as many times as you need to hear it: the car isn't you, and the car isn't what I need out there." 

Another sigh, full of regret. "I appreciate the sentiment, Michael, but try telling that to bullets headed in your direction. Friendship won't protect you when it matters most." He looked down again, his slender shoulders slumping inside his dress jacket. "I've been thinking about all your objections to taking me off the estate, and I've come to the conclusion that you're right. Tomorrow you should go alone. Under the circumstances my usefulness to you is severely —" 

"Kitt… you're the one who's right." He reached out to lay his left hand gently on Kitt's right wrist. "Forget all those stupid things I said. I wasn't thinking straight. You're my partner, and I can't imagine being out there without you." 

His face lit up. "Really, Michael?"

"Really." He squeezed Kitt's wrist, unable to stop himself from smiling at his best friend's undisguised pleasure, then removed his hand and nodded at Kitt's plate. "Now finish up that steak, huh? Tomorrow's gonna be a busy day and you'll need your fuel." 

"Michael?" There was that sweet smile again, almost shy. "Thank you." 

"Don't thank me, buddy." He flashed a brilliant smile in return. "Trust me, it just wouldn't be the same without you." 

They finished their dinner without speaking again, but it was the kind of silence that embodied harmony rather than discord. The kind of silence they'd shared on the road a thousand times, where no words were necessary to communicate their pleasure with each other's company — and if there was a degree of private tension on his end of the balance, Michael was certainly willing to tolerate it in exchange for the closeness that was still within his reach. 


	11. Chapter 11

At two p.m. the following afternoon Michael was driving Devon's wine-colored Bentley down Wilshire Boulevard in the heart of Beverly Hills — with the top down, taking advantage of the sun even though the air was distinctly nippy. Kitt did not approve of this. He didn't say anything outright, but after four and a half years of intimate partnership Michael could practically read his mind, especially considering that KITT had never made a secret of his distaste for open air travel.  

That wasn't really what was eating his partner's heart out, though. Kitt had spent the past seven or eight blocks hunched down in the Bentley's front passenger seat, his arms folded across his chest and his chin resolutely lowered, his eyes averted from the lively pedestrian traffic all around them, grimly silent. After trying five different conversational gambits and having them all stall out, Michael decided to cut right to the chase: "You okay? You're looking a little…" 

"Uncomfortable? Nervous? Self-conscious? Try all of the above!" He tore his gaze away from the license plate of the car ahead of them and fixed Michael with a glare both withering and pained. "Being seen in this body on the estate, where I'm among Foundation personnel, is one thing, but this… oh Michael, I look simply dreadful, don't I? Be honest." 

The light ahead had just turned red, necessitating a full stop. Michael took the opportunity to look Kitt up and down: worried, clearly, but still as neat a package as could be imagined in black dress pants and ankle boots, with a white linen dress shirt under his bulky gunmetal grey leather jacket that was open just enough to show a peek of his collarbones. Odd, that a male collarbone could be sexy. His definitely were. "On the contrary. I'd say you're looking pretty damned good." 

A scornful flick of his head that flipped the honey blond wave off his forehead for a couple of seconds. "I sincerely doubt _that!_ " 

The sharp movement had drawn attention from the sidewalk, causing Michael to grin hugely. "Are you kidding? Look at those girls on the corner checking you out!" He couldn't resist rubbing it in as repayment for all the times KITT had subjected him to disapproving lectures about spending unproductive time with pretty women, practically whooping: "You're a rock star, buddy!" 

Kitt folded his arms tighter and made himself as small as he possibly could in his seat, looking like the King of Grump Mountain. "I never asked to be on Billboard Magazine's hit parade, and I _don't_ appreciate it!" 

Michael smiled and waved at the girls in question as the light turned green and he sent the Bentley on its way again. "C'mon, Kitt, lighten up. If you get stuck in that body, sooner or later you're gonna have to —" 

"No," Kitt snapped, "I most certainly will not! What a thoroughly distasteful notion!" 

Sadly, but firmly, he shook his head. "It's the age-old biological imperative — woman meets man, man must have his mate, and all that jazz." 

The gaze Kitt turned on him — as if he'd reached over and slipped a knife between the AI's ribs — reminded him about a half second too late that the KITT had started playing the song in question on a semi-regular basis after they'd begun their affair, and that it had, for KITT, as close to romantic significance as anything Michael was aware of. He nearly tripped over his own tongue trying to catch up: "Kitt, I didn't mean —" 

"I know perfectly well what you meant." He looked away at the sidewalk streaming past, then unfolded his arms and shifted back into a standard upright position, speaking much more briskly: "Fortunately for all concerned, I am definitely not a human male. Nor will I ever be, no matter what outward appearances might suggest. I suppose if this body attracts unwanted attention that's just a burden I'll have to learn to bear." 

Michael opened his mouth again. The words on the tip of his tongue were: _Well, you're so damned gorgeous you make my heart ache just looking at you, so you'd better get used to it._ What actually emerged was: "Whatever happened to being convinced that you look like hell on a cracker?" 

Another proud flick of his chin. "Compared to my sleek, black, dashing former self… well, of course there _is_ no comparison. And I never claimed that any of those young ladies has any taste." 

This time he actually had to bite his tongue tip to keep himself quiet. If Kitt noticed that his partner's smile was pasted on, he didn't see fit to mention it. 

****************************** 

When LT-2117's secretary showed them into his small office, which was crammed with books and bric-a-brak of the touristy variety, it was a somewhat stout man with greying hair who looked up pleasantly from the paperwork on his crowded desk — and then stared, his pink lips falling a little open. He rose from his seat and came around the desk with something between surprise and consternation infusing his rounded features. "Jim? What are you doing here? Where the hell have you —" 

Kitt spoke with admirable tact and gentleness, given the circumstances. "I'm afraid that I am not James Eugene Rosseau." 

An incredulous little cough of laughter. "Don't be —" Then he stopped in his tracks for a couple of seconds, his eyes narrowing, before finishing his approach and walking around Kitt in a full circle, studying him from every angle. Kitt endured the scrutiny calmly, his gaze fixed on the older man's face when it was back in his line of sight. "Dear God… the bastard did it, didn't he? Who _are_ you?" 

"I am the artificial intelligence which formerly inhabited the central processing unit of the Knight Industries Two Thousand robotic automobile. You may call me Kitt, if you prefer." 

"And Jim's… taken your body?" He looked both fascinated and appalled. 

"Do you know anything about the incident in question?" Kitt countered. 

"I knew he was planning something audacious, and that he had his eye on a particular piece of AI tech. But I never thought he'd dare to pull it off." He was back in front of Kitt now, peering deeply into his unwavering green eyes. "You're sentient, aren't you?" 

Kitt raised one blond eyebrow and promptly retorted: "Are you?"  

LT-2117 laughed, a bright delighted burst of sound, and glanced sidelong at Michael for the first time with impish amusement. "Oh, my! He's got quite an attitude, doesn't he?" 

"Tell me about it," Michael deadpanned, which earned him a dirty look from his partner.  

"Well," the Transhumanist chuckled, turning to move back toward his desk, "I don't know what human niceties you observe, Kitt, but around here three o'clock is always tea time. Would either of you care for a cup?" 

"That would be lovely," Kitt responded smoothly, and followed their host to take a set in one of the two comfortable chairs facing the desk. Michael settled for following his lead. "Thank you, Mister…?" 

"LT will suffice." He sat down with a little huff and reached for the intercom close at his right hand. "Jennifer, I'll be having guests for tea. Two extra cups, please — and some ginger cookies. Thank you." He turned his attention to Kitt again. "And you? Do you have a last name?" 

Kitt looked toward Michael for a swiftly considering second. "Knight, I suppose." 

"Kitt Knight. It has a certain ring to it." He followed Kitt's gaze. "And you are…?" 

"Michael Knight. I used to be Kitt's driver, before his body got hijacked." 

"Ah!" Both eyebrows rose. "So you're…?"  

"Partners," Kitt said firmly. "We'd worked together for four years, seven months and eighteen days at the point when James Rosseau abducted me." 

"And you don't work together now?" 

"I'm assisting Michael on this investigation, but my support role is considerably diminished." 

"Don't listen to him," Michael interjected with a smile. He trusted his instincts with people he'd just met, and something about the Transhumanist put him at ease. "He thinks that just because he's human now he's nowhere near as good as he used to be, but let me tell you, he's still as sharp as a whip and his memory is infallible." 

"Yes," Kitt noted wryly, "and we're driving around in an unarmored '86 Bentley — hardly cutting edge, I must say." 

"That'll change in the next couple of days, pal." In response to LT's curious glance, he grinned more broadly and explained: "The Foundation is wrapping up preparations on a back-up version of his former body — KITT Lite, so to speak." 

Kitt made a face halfway between a wince and a grimace. "And I expect that riding around in the passenger seat of my own car, even if the version is not exactly equivalent, will be a… memorable experience, to say the least." 

"Remarkable," LT murmured, his gaze once again fixed on the humanly embodied AI. "Was he always like this?" 

"Yes," Michael said at the precise second that Kitt said "No," and the annoyed look they sent each other's way made LT laugh again. But his expression quickly turned sober. 

"Tell me," he said quietly, "do you think that Jim is still… well, alive? I was expecting him to attend the West Coast Transhumanist Coalition monthly meeting last Saturday, since he'd indicated that he was going to be in the area, but he never showed up." 

"He was alive enough to try running Michael down the last time we saw him," Kitt frowned. "But as to whether or not his personality remained stable in my hardware… I honestly can't say." 

"How long ago did this happen?" 

"Thirteen days ago," Michael supplied.  

A little frown puckered his brow and pursed his lips. "Well, he hasn't contacted me in over three weeks, which I'd have expected him to do under those circumstances. He never could resist an opportunity to brag about his accomplishments, and if he actually succeeded in achieving transhuman status…"  

"If he tried to phone you, you might not have recognized his voice," Kitt pointed out. "We share an accent, but my car-embodied voice synthesizer produces a sharper and dryer vocalization at a slightly higher pitch." 

"I haven't received any such calls." A knock on the door heralded the arrival of the secretary with a rolling tea cart, and conversation was suspended as she poured, queried personal preferences (Kitt, Michael noted, took his black with two sugar) and distributed cups, then wedged a plate of small fragrant cookies into a tiny clear space at the front edge of LT's desk before taking her leave. After the door had closed LT continued: "And believe me, I would have noticed. Jim is the only person I know personally who shares your particular East Coast accent. You speak in a similar manner, you say?" 

"Virtually identical," Kitt said. 

He cocked his head, looking thoughtful. "Not entirely. You've changed his voice: when he spoke, he enunciated his 'r's more clearly and definitely spoke at a lower pitch. If he's altered your voice as well I'm sure I'd have recognized his manner of speech." 

Kitt scowled. "I find that highly unlikely. My anharmonic synthesizer, which produces the car's spoken communications, has protocols that are practically hardwired in." 

"Not quite true, buddy," Michael remarked. "There was that whole week when you spoke to me in a New York City accent, remember?" 

This time Kitt definitely winced. "I've tried very hard to forget it." 

"So," Michael continued, reaching for a cookie, "Rosseau could have altered the voice of the car — if he wanted to." 

"I very much doubt he could have altered his personality," Kitt countered. "And from my encounter with him, I can safely say that he was a man of very strong and definite mannerisms and habits." 

"That's one way of putting it." LT helped himself to a cookie, pausing before biting into it to remark: "It would be accurate to say that Jim made a lasting impression on everybody he met." 

"Another way you're similar," Michael smiled, then responded to Kitt's questioning glance with another smile, bit into his own cookie, and took his time chewing and swallowing it. "Kitt, nobody who meets you ever forgets you." 

LT sipped his tea, looking at Kitt over the rim of his cup. "I would deduce, Mister Knight, that your partner generally makes a favourable impression on those he encounters. Unfortunately, Jim was both arrogant and abrasive —" 

" _Don't_ say it," Kitt warned when Michael opened his mouth again. 

"— and although he was unquestionably brilliant he had very few friends." 

Michael, who'd been gazing fondly at Kitt's scowl, turned his attention back to the task at hand. "How many is a few?" 

LT raised his eyebrows, visibly counting them up. "Myself, Ellen Simpson, Pietro Apalkov… I could draw up a much longer list of those who found him distasteful." 

Michael set aside his cup on its saucer, which he'd placed on a small table situated between his chair and Kitt's, and leaned forward. "Distasteful in what way?" 

LT leaned back in his chair, which creaked softly under his weight. "Don't get me wrong, Jim was absolutely brilliant — his lectures at our monthly meetings were the stuff of legend. But his personal philosophy was rather… well, Nietzschean, to say the least. Unlike most Transhumanists, who believe that technologies to improve the quality of life and extend our lifespans should be made widely available once developed, Jim was convinced that the vast majority of humanity is unworthy of augmentation. In his opinion only certain select people, the intellectual elite, should be allowed to access those technologies — as far as he was concerned, the rest of the human race is destined for extinction, and sooner rather than later." 

Kitt wrinkled his nose. "What a repugnant… it can't even be called a line of reasoning." 

LT reached out to take another cookie, studying the AI once more. "Tell me, Kitt, are you familiar with the Three Laws of Robotics?" 

"Highly. My own program is based on a similar set of precepts." 

"Hm. I thought as much. A programmer would have to be insane not to employ them in some form, if the artificial intelligence in question had any potential to harm human beings. And you say the body Jim stole was some form of automobile?" 

"The most expensive and extensively equipped automobile on the planet," Michael stated.  

"Well then, I'd say we have a problem on our hands. If we can speak of a human being as having a program, then Jim's was the opposite of your own: he spoke with positive longing of the day when the majority of the human species would be extinguished, leaving only the cream of the crop behind." 

Michael frowned. "Including himself?" 

"Including himself," LT confirmed. He drummed his fingers on the edge of his desk for a moment, then reached for the intercom again. "Jennifer, bring me the Rousseau files, will you? All of them. Thank you." To Michael and Kitt he added, "I'm afraid I can't help you in terms of where Jim is right now, or even where he actually lived — his periodicals from the WCTC always went to a post office box. But what I _can_ provide you with is transcripts of the lectures he delivered at our meetings, and with copies of the papers he submitted to our semiannual journal. Perhaps you'll find something within them that will be of use to you." 

Kitt nodded. "Thank you, LT. I'm sure they'll be very helpful." 

Michael stepped in smoothly to play Gracious Cop-Firm Cop. "In the meantime, anything you can tell us about him — anything at all, even if it doesn't seem significant to you — might turn out to be the key to cracking this case. Where did you first meet James Rosseau?" 

LT smiled again, this time wistfully. "It was in Amsterdam, actually, back in nineteen eighty-one. We were both attending a futurist conference, and he approached me following my presentation on the future of Transhumanist theory and practice…" 

Two hours later they left the professor's office with plenty of cookies and tea under their belts, a working understanding of Transhumanism, a hefty pile of transcripts, and a short list of two other people that Rosseau might legitimately call 'friends', both of them on other continents… and, Michael's instincts told him, no significant clues. He could tell that Kitt knew it too, and he found it consistently amazing that a distinctly pissy expression somehow managed to look so damned good on that sharp-featured face. Not that he blamed Kitt for being prickly considering the amount of reading the AI was going to have to do tonight and tomorrow, scanning all that paperwork in hopes of finding a better lead than anything they current had to go on. As he opened the Bentley's trunk to let Kitt load in the box of paperwork, he thanked his lucky stars that he wasn't the one who had to read hundreds of pages of what would, judging by LT's descriptions, turn out to be the ravings of an immensely brilliant and highly unpleasant madman. 

[TO BE CONTINUED]


End file.
